an absorbing consideration
of what was best _for you_, cannot consent, even out of anxiety for
your futurity, to torment you now, to vex you by a form of speech
which you persist in translating into a want of trust in you ... (_I_,
want trust in you!!) into a need of more evidence about you from
others ... (_could_ you say so?) and even into an indisposition on my
part to fulfil my engagement--no, dearest dearest, it is not right of
you. And therefore, as you have these thoughts reasonably or
unreasonably, I shall punish you for them at once, and 'chain' you ...
(as you wish to be chained), chain you, rivet you--do you feel how the
little fine chain twists round and round you? do you hear the stroke
of the riveting? and you may _feel that_ too. Now, it is done--now,
you are chained--_Bia_ has finished the work--I, _Ba_! (observe the
anagram!) and not a word do you say, of Prometheus, though you have
the conscience of it all, I dare say. Well! you must be pleased, ...
as it was 'the weight of too much liberty' which offended you: and now
you believe, perhaps, that I trust you, love you, and look to you over
the heads of the whole living world, without any one head needing to
stoop; you _must_, if you please, because you belong to me now and
shall believe as I choose. There's a ukase for you! Cry out ... repent
... and I will loose the links, and let you go again--_shall_ it be
'_My dear Miss Barrett_?'

Seriously, you shall not think of me such things as you half said, if
not whole said, to-day. If all men were to speak evil of you, my heart
would speak of you the more good--_that_ would be the one result with
_me_. Do I not know you, soul to soul? should I believe that any of
them could know you as I know you? Then for the rest, I am not afraid
of 'toads' now, not being a child any longer. I am not inclined to
mind, if _you_ do not mind, what may be said about us by the
benevolent world, nor will other reasons of a graver kind affect me
otherwise than by the necessary pain. Therefore the whole rests with
you--unless illness should intervene--and you will be kind and good
(will you not?) and not think hard thoughts of me ever again--no. It
wasn't the sense of being less than you had a right to pretend to,
which made me speak what you disliked--for it is _I_ who am
'unworthy,' and not another--not certainly that other!

I meant to write more to-night of subjects farther off us, but my
sisters have come up-stairs and I