you both. And I beg of you, dear Sir, to take me at my
word; and don't let me be tortured, as I have been so many weeks, with
such anguish of mind, that nothing but religious considerations can
make supportable to me."

"And are you in earnest, Pamela?" coming to me, and folding me in his
arms over the chair's back, the seat of which supported my trembling
knees, "Can you so easily part with me?"

"I can, Sir, and I will!--rather than divide my interest in you,
knowingly, with any lady upon earth. But say not, can I part with you.
Sir; it is you that part with me: and tell me, Sir, tell me but what
you had intended should become of me?"

"You talk to me, my dearest life, as if all you had heard against
me was true; and you would have me answer you, (would you?) as if it
was."

"I want nothing to convince me, Sir, that the Countess loves you:
you know the rest of my information: judge for me, what I can, what I
ought to believe!--You know the rumours of the world concerning you:
Even I, who stay so much at home, and have not taken the least pains
to find out my wretchedness, nor to confirm it, since I knew it, have
come to the hearing of it; and if you know the licence taken with both
your characters, and yet correspond so openly, must it not look to me
that you value not your honour in the world's eye, nor my lady hers? I
told you, Sir, the answer she made to her uncle."

"You told me, my dear, as you were told. Be tender of a lady's
reputation--for your own sake. No one is exempted from calumny; and
even words said, and the occasion of saying them not known, may bear
a very different construction from 'what they would have done, had the
occasion been told."

"This may be all true. Sir: I wish the lady would be as tender of her
reputation as I would be, let her injure me in your affections as she
will. But can you say, Sir, that there is nothing between you, that
should _not_ be, according to _my_ notions of virtue and honour, and
according to your _own_, which I took pride in, before that fatal
masquerade?

"You answer me not," continued I; "and may I not fairly presume you
cannot as I wish to be answered? But come, dearest Sir," (and I put
my arms around his neck) "let me not urge you too boldly. I will never
forget your benefits, and your past kindnesses to me. I have been a
happy creature: no one, till within these few weeks, was ever so happy
as I. I will love you still with a passion as ardent as ever I