have suffered
a week to pass without coming. Had not I been told you were well I
should have imagined the contrary. I expected you either the day before
yesterday, or yesterday, but found myself disappointed. My God, what is
the matter with you? You have no business, nor can you have any
uneasiness; for had this been the case, I flatter myself you would have
come and communicated it to me. You are, therefore, ill! Relieve me,
I beseech you, speedily from my fears. Adieu, my dear friend: let this
adieu produce me a good-morning from you."

ANSWER.
"I cannot yet say anything to you. I wait to be better informed, and
this I shall be sooner or later. In the meantime be persuaded that
innocence will find a defender sufficiently powerful to cause some
repentance in the slanderers, be they who they may."

SECOND NOTE FROM THE SAME.
"Do you know that your letter frightens me? What does it mean? I have
read it twenty times. In truth I do not understand what it means. All I
can perceive is, that you are uneasy and tormented, and that you wait
until you are no longer so before you speak to me upon the subject.
Is this, my dear friend, what we agreed upon? What then is become of
that friendship and confidence, and by what means have I lost them?
Is it with me or for me that you are angry? However this may be, come to
me this evening I conjure you; remember you promised me no longer than a
week ago to let nothing remain upon your mind, but immediately to
communicate to me whatever might make it uneasy. My dear friend, I live
in that confidence--There--I have just read your letter again; I do not
understand the contents better, but they make me tremble. You seem to be
cruelly agitated. I could wish to calm your mind, but as I am ignorant
of the cause whence your uneasiness arises, I know not what to say,
except that I am as wretched as yourself, and shall remain so until we
meet. If you are not here this evening at six o'clock, I set off to
morrow for the Hermitage, let the weather be how it will, and in whatever
state of health I may be; for I can no longer support the inquietude I
now feel. Good day, my dear friend, at all risks I take the liberty to
tell you, without knowing whether or not you are in need of such advice,
to endeavor to stop the progress uneasiness makes in solitude. A fly be
comes a monster. I have frequently experienced it."

ANSWER.
"I can neither come to see you nor receive your visit s