u had not judged more wisely
for me than I for myself. You did, indeed, act "kindly as ever"; and I
have thanked you for it a thousand times, since I came to my senses in
the dismal altitude of my "sixieme etage" at Paris.

'No disrespect to your sister, to whom I did greater injustice than I
knew, in asking her to seal my mistake. I threw away a rough diamond
because its sharp edges scratched my fingers, and, in my fit of passion,
tried to fill up its place with another jewel. Happily you and she knew
better! Now I see the diamond sparkling, refined, transcendent, with
such chastened lustre as even I scarce dared to expect!

'These solitary years of disappointment have brought me to a sense of
the harshness and arrogance of my dealings with the high nature that
had so generously intrusted itself to me. There was presumption from the
first in undertaking to mould her, rudeness in my attempts to control
her, and precipitate passion and jealousy in resenting the displeasure
I had provoked; and all was crowned by the absurd notion that pique with
her was love of your sister!

'I see it all now, or rather I have seen it ever since it was too late;
I have brooded over it till I have been half distracted, night after
night! And now I can hardly speak, or raise my head in her presence.
I must have her pardon, whether I dare or not to ask one thing more. I
never was sure that her heart was mine; my conduct did not deserve it,
whatever my feelings did. If she accepted me from romance, I did enough
to open her eyes! I am told she accepts Lord St. Erme--fit retribution
on me, who used to look down on him in my arrogant folly, and have to
own that he has merited her, while I--

'But, at least, I trust to your goodness to obtain some word of
forgiveness for me without disturbing her peace of mind. I would not
expose her to one distressing scene! She has gone through a great deal,
and the traces of grief and care on that noble countenance almost break
my heart. I would not give her the useless pain of having to reject me,
and of perceiving the pain I should not be able to conceal.

'I commit myself to your kindness, then, and entreat of you, if the
feeling for me was a delusion, or if it is extinct, to let me know in
the manner least painful to you; and, when she can endure the subject,
to tell her how bitterly I have repented of having tried to force
humility on her, when I stood in still greater need of the lesson, and
of havi