Oh ! if you knew how I detest myself, and what reason I have to do so ! Truth is in my heart, and I must ever reproach myself for usurping the esteem and the sentiments that are given to me. During this late time I fell into a state that alarmed my friends ; they ascribed it to my sense of the loss that I have met with, and thus they honoured it; whereas, the alarm you caused me diverted my mind from those regrets that had hitherto rent my soul. So, though dying of grief, I am unworthy of the sentiments I inspire. Do you conceive the full horror of my situation? Do you believe that it is in human nature to bear it long ? Where shall I find courage against such sorrow? Who will share it with me? Who can have compassion upon so much misery? Well ! I say to my heart — and I feel it, I do not deceive myself — if M. de Mora could live again he would understand me, he would love me, and I should have no more remorse, no more sufferiag. Ah! that feeling ought to show you what I have lost ! Mon ami, why have you not written to me by the last two couriers ? Why do you not answer me and say, "I reply to your letter of such a date"? We ought to come to some agreement ; a troubled head needs to be spared. Mon ami, consider me as one attacked by mortal illness ; and give me the cares, the indulgence, we have for the dying ; that will have no harmful consequences to your happiness. I bind myself by all that I hold most sacred, by the memory of M. de Mora, never to trouble you, to exact nothing from you ; and after this letter of yours, which is such that my heart thanks you for it, you could never deceive me, I could never complain; and if I did show grief, you would be feeling enough to hear me without impatience.
Adieu, I do not answer your letter; in the confusion of my thoughts, in the trouble I am in, I feel but one thing: I
