day, knowing that his mistress
had gone to an upper chamber, he had followed, or, rather, been drawn
after her. As she proved deaf to his entreaties, he had recourse to
violence. He knows not what happened; but he called God to witness that
his intentions to her were honourable, and that he desired nothing more
sincerely than that they should marry, and pass their lives together.
When he had come to this point, he began to hesitate, as if there
was something which he had not courage to utter, till at length he
acknowledged with some confusion certain little confidences she had
encouraged, and liberties she had allowed. He broke off two or three
times in his narration, and assured me most earnestly that he had
no wish to make her bad, as he termed it, for he loved her still as
sincerely as ever; that the tale had never before escaped his lips,
and was only now told to convince me that he was not utterly lost and
abandoned. And here, my dear friend, I must commence the old song which
you know I utter eternally. If I could only represent the man as he
stood, and stands now before me, could I only give his true expressions,
you would feel compelled to sympathise in his fate. But enough: you,
who know my misfortune and my disposition, can easily comprehend
the attraction which draws me toward every unfortunate being, but
particularly toward him whose story I have recounted.

On perusing this letter a second time, I find I have omitted the
conclusion of my tale; but it is easily supplied. She became reserved
toward him, at the instigation of her brother who had long hated him,
and desired his expulsion from the house, fearing that his sister's
second marriage might deprive his children of the handsome fortune they
expected from her; as she is childless. He was dismissed at length; and
the whole affair occasioned so much scandal, that the mistress dared not
take him back, even if she had wished it. She has since hired another
servant, with whom, they say, her brother is equally displeased, and
whom she is likely to marry; but my informant assures me that he himself
is determined not to survive such a catastrophe.

This story is neither exaggerated nor embellished: indeed, I have
weakened and impaired it in the narration, by the necessity of using the
more refined expressions of society.

This love, then, this constancy, this passion, is no poetical fiction.
It is actual, and dwells in its greatest purity amongst that class