your personal assurance of its being otherwise m d the contents of her last note to him were these what am i to imagine by your behavior last night again i demand an explanation of it i was prepared to meet you with the pleasure which our separation naturally produced � with the familiarity which our intimacy at appeared to me to justify i was indeed i have passed a wretched night in to excuse a conduct which can scarcely be called less than insulting but though i have not yet been able to form any reasonable apology for your behavior i am perfectly ready to hear your justification of it you have perhaps been or purposely deceived in something concerning me which may have lowered me in your opinion tell me what it is explain the grounds sense and on which yoa acted and i shall be satisfied in being able to satisfy yoa it would grieve me indeed to be obliged to think ill of you but to learn that you are not what we have hitherto believed you that your regard for us all was that your behavior to me was intended only to deceive let it be told as soon as possible my feelings are at present in a state of dreadful i wish to you but certainty on either side will be ease to what i now suffer if your sentiments are no longer what they were you will return my notes and the lock of my hair which is in your possession m d that such so full of affection and con could have been bo for s sake would have been unwilling to believe but her condemnation of him did not blind her to the of their having been written at all and she was silently over the which had such proofs of tenderness not by anything preceding and most severely condemned by the event when perceiving that she had finished the letters observed to her that they contained nothing but what any one would have written in the same situation i felt myself she added to be as solemnly engaged to him as if the legal had bound us to each other i can believe it said but unfortunately he did not feel the same and he did feel the same � for weeks and weeks he felt it i know he did whatever may have changed him now and nothing but the art employed against me can have done it i was once as dear to him as my own soul could wish this lock of hair which now he can so readily give up was begged of me with the most earnest had you seen his look his manner had you heard his voice at that moment have you forgot the last evening of our being together at the morning that we parted tool when he told me that it might be many weeks before we met again � his distress � can i ever forget his distress for a moment or two she could say no more but when this emotion had passed away she added in a firmer tone � i have been cruelly used but not by dearest who but himself by whom can he have been by all the world rather than by his own heart i could rather believe every creature of my acquaintance together to ruin me in his opinion than believe his nature capable of such cruelty this woman of whom he writes � whoever she be � or any one in short but your own dear self mamma and edward may have been so barbarous to me beyond you three is there sense and � a creature in the world whom i would not rather suspect of evil than whose heart i know so well would not contend and only replied whoever may have been so your let them be cheated of their malignant triumph my dear sister by seeing how nobly the consciousness of your own innocence and good intentions your spirits it is a reasonable and pride which such no no cried misery such as mine has no pride i care not who knows that i am wretched the triumph of seeing me so may be open to all the world they who suffer little may be proud and independent as they like � may resist insult or return mortification � but i cannot i must feel � i must be wretched � and they are welcome to enjoy the consciousness of it that can but for my mother s sake and mine � i would do more than for my own but to appear happy when i am so miserable � oh who can require it again they were both silent was employed in walking thoughtfully from the fire to the window from the window to the fire without knowing that she received warmth from one or objects through the other and seated at the foot of the bed with her head sense and leaning against one of its posts again took np s letter and after shuddering over every sentence exclaimed � it is too much i oh could this be yours cruel cruel � nothing can you nothing can whatever he might have heard against me ought he not to have suspended his belief ought he not to have told me of it to have given me the power of clearing myself the lock of hair repeating it from the letter which you so bestowed on me � that is where was your heart when you wrote those words oh insolent i � can he be justified no in no possible way and yet this woman � who knows what her art may have been � how long it may have been and how deeply contrived by her i � who is she � who can she be � whom did i ever hear him talk of 