ssured. I do not suffer--I think of you--I
think of the time when I was dear to you. Nay, you love me yet, I know
it. But why so cruelly drive me away? Say one word, and I return like
the lightning. Ah, these babblings are but flung into empty air. I shall
live and die far away from you--I have lost you for ever!
FROM MYLORD EDOUARD TO JULIE
Deep depression has succeeded violent grief in the mind of your lover.
But I can count upon his heart, it is a heart framed to fight and to
conquer.
I have a proposition to make which I hope you will carefully consider.
In your happiness and your lover's I have a tender and inextinguishable
interest, since between you I perceive a deeper harmony than I have ever
known to exist between man and woman. Your present misfortunes are due
to my indiscretion; let me do what I can to repair the fault.
I have in Yorkshire an old castle and a large estate. They are yours and
your lover's, Julie, if you will accept them. You can escape from Vevay
with the aid of my valet, when I have left there; you can join your
lover, be wedded to him, and spend the rest of your days happily in the
place of refuge I have designed for you.
Reflect upon this, I beseech you. I should add that I have said nothing
of this project to your lover. The decision rests with you and you
alone.
FROM JULIE TO MYLORD EDOUARD
Your letter, mylord, fills me with gratitude and admiration. It would
indeed be joy for me to gain happiness under the auspices of so generous
a friend, and to procure from his kindness the contentment that fortune
has denied me.
But could contentment ever be granted to me if I had the consciousness
of having pitilessly abandoned those who gave me birth? I am their only
living child; all their pleasure, all their hope is in me. Can I deliver
up their closing days to shame, regrets, and tears? No, mylord,
happiness could not be bought at such a price. I dare brave all the
sorrows that await me here; remorse I dare not brave.
FROM JULIE TO HER LOVER
I have just returned from the wedding of Claire and M. d'Orbe. You will,
I know, share my pleasure in the happiness of our dearest friend; and
such is the worth of the friendship that joins us, that the good fortune
of one of us should be a real consolation for the sorrows of the other
two.
Continue to write me from Paris, but let me tell you that I am not
pleased with the bitterness of your letters--a bitterness unworthy of my
|