e existence of
my child, which (said they) I intended to conceal. I wrote to my future
parents, but I received no answers to my letters; and when they came
back to Paris, and I called at their house, I was not admitted. Much
alarmed, I sent to my old friend to learn the reason of this conduct on
their part, which I did not in the least understand. As soon as the good
soul knew the real cause of it all, he sacrificed himself generously,
took upon himself all the blame of my reserve, and tried to exculpate
me, but all to no purpose. Questions of interest and morality were
regarded so seriously by the family, their prejudices were so firmly and
deeply rooted, that they never swerved from their resolution. My despair
was overwhelming. At first I tried to deprecate their wrath, but my
letters were sent back to me unopened. When every possible means had
been tried in vain; when her father and mother had plainly told my old
friend (the cause of my misfortune) that they would never consent to
their daughter's marriage with a man who had upon his conscience the
death of a woman and the life of a natural son, even though Evelina
herself should implore them upon her knees; then, sir, there only
remained to me one last hope, a hope as slender and fragile as the
willow-branch at which a drowning wretch catches to save himself.

"I ventured to think that Evelina's love would be stronger than her
father's scruples, that her inflexible parents might yield to her
entreaties. Perhaps, who knows, her father had kept from her the reasons
of the refusal, which was so fatal to our love. I determined to acquaint
her with all the circumstances, and to make a final appeal to her; and
in fear and trembling, in grief and tears, my first and last love-letter
was written. To-day I can only dimly remember the words dictated to
me by my despair; but I must have told Evelina that if she had dealt
sincerely with me she could not and ought not to love another, or how
could her whole life be anything but a lie? she must be false either to
her future husband or to me. Could she refuse to the lover, who had been
so misjudged and hardly entreated, the devotion which she would have
shown him as her husband, if the marriage which had already taken place
in our hearts had been outwardly solemnized? Was not this to fall from
the ideal of womanly virtue? What woman would not love to feel that
the promises of the heart were more sacred and binding than the chains