have suffered--indeed you need not: for I would choose the cruellest
death rather than to be his. And yet, my dear Mrs. Norton, I will own to
you, that once I could have loved him.--Ungrateful man!--had he permitted
me to love him, I once could have loved him. Yet he never deserved
love. And was not this a fault?--But now, if I can but keep out of his
hands, and obtain a last forgiveness, and that as well for the sake of my
dear friends' future reflections, as for my own present comfort, it is
all I wish for.

Reconciliation with my friends I do not expect; nor pardon from them; at
least, till in extremity, and as a viaticum.

O my beloved Mrs. Norton, you cannot imagine what I have suffered!--But
indeed my heart is broken!--I am sure I shall not live to take possession
of that independence, which you think would enable me to atone, in some
measure, for my past conduct.

While this is my opinion, you may believe I shall not be easy till I can
obtain a last forgiveness.

I wish to be left to take my own course in endeavouring to procure this
grace. Yet know I not, at present, what that course shall be.

I will write. But to whom is my doubt. Calamity has not yet given me
the assurance to address myself to my FATHER. My UNCLES (well as they
once loved me) are hard hearted. They never had their masculine passions
humanized by the tender name of FATHER. Of my BROTHER I have no hope. I
have then but my MOTHER, and my SISTER, to whom I can apply.--'And may I
not, my dearest Mamma, be permitted to lift up my trembling eye to your
all-cheering, and your once more than indulgent, your fond eye, in hopes
of seasonable mercy to the poor sick heart that yet beats with life drawn
from your own dearer heart?--Especially when pardon only, and not
restoration, is implored?'

Yet were I able to engage my mother's pity, would it not be a mean to
make her still more unhappy than I have already made her, by the
opposition she would meet with, were she to try to give force to that
pity?

To my SISTER, then, I think, I will apply--Yet how hard-hearted has my
sister been!--But I will not ask for protection; and yet I am in hourly
dread that I shall want protection.--All I will ask for at present
(preparative to the last forgiveness I will implore) shall be only to be
freed from the heavy curse that seems to have operated as far is it can
operate as to this life--and, surely, it was passion, and not intention,
that carried it