o long as my
present inquietude continues. The confidence of which you speak no
longer exists, and it will be easy for you to recover it. I see nothing
more in your present anxiety than the desire of drawing from the
confessions of others some advantage agreeable to your views; and my
heart, so ready to pour its overflowings into another which opens itself
to receive them, is shut against trick and cunning. I distinguish your
ordinary address in the difficulty you find in understanding my note.
Do you think me dupe enough to believe you have not comprehended what it
meant? No: but I shall know how to overcome your subtleties by my
frankness. I will explain myself more clearly, that you may understand
me still less.

"Two lovers closely united and worthy of each other's love are dear to
me; I expect you will not know who I mean unless I name them. I presume
attempts have been made to disunite them, and that I have been made use
of to inspire one of the two with jealousy. The choice was not
judicious, but it appeared convenient to the purposes of malice, and of
this malice it is you whom I suspect to be guilty. I hope this becomes
more clear.

"Thus the woman whom I most esteem would, with my knowledge, have been
loaded with the infamy of dividing her heart and person between two
lovers, and I with that of being one of these wretches. If I knew that,
for a single moment in your life, you ever had thought this, either of
her or myself, I should hate you until my last hour. But it is with
having said, and not with having thought it, that I charge you. In this
case, I cannot comprehend which of the three you wished to injure; but,
if you love peace of mind, tremble lest you should have succeeded.
I have not concealed either from you or her all the ill I think of
certain connections, but I wish these to end by a means as virtuous as
their cause, and that an illegitimate love may be changed into an eternal
friendship. Should I, who never do ill to any person, be the innocent
means of doing it to my friends? No, I should never forgive you; I
should become your irreconcilable enemy. Your secrets are all I should
respect; for I will never be a man without honor.

"I do not apprehend my present perplexity will continue a long time. I
shall soon know whether or not I am deceived; I shall then perhaps have
great injuries to repair, which I will do with as much cheerfulness as
that with which the most agreeable act