*****

EIGHT O'CLOCK.

The man, my dear, has got the letter!--What a strange diligence! I wish
he mean me well, that he takes so much pains!--Yet, to be ingenuous, I
must own, that I should be displeased if he took less--I wish, however,
he had been an hundred miles off!--What an advantage have I given him
over me!

Now the letter is out of my power, I have more uneasiness and regret
than I had before. For, till now, I had a doubt, whether it should or
should not go: and now I think it ought not to have gone. And yet is
there any other way than to do as I have done, if I would avoid Solmes?
But what a giddy creature shall I be thought, if I pursue the course to
which this letter must lead me?

My dearest friend, tell me, have I done wrong?--Yet do not say I have,
if you think it; for should all the world besides condemn me, I shall
have some comfort, if you do not. The first time I ever besought you to
flatter me. That, of itself, is an indication that I have done wrong,
and am afraid of hearing the truth--O tell me (but yet do not tell me)
if I have done wrong!

*****

FRIDAY, ELEVEN O'CLOCK.

My aunt has made me another visit. She began what she had to say
with letting me know that my friends are all persuaded that I still
correspond with Mr. Lovelace; as is plain, she said, by hints and
menaces he throws out, which shew that he is apprized of several things
that have passed between my relations and me, sometimes within a very
little while after they have happened.

Although I approve not of the method he stoops to take to come at his
intelligence, yet it is not prudent in me to clear myself by the ruin of
the corrupted servant, (although his vileness has neither my connivance
nor approbation,) since my doing so might occasion the detection of my
own correspondence; and so frustrate all the hopes I have to avoid
this Solmes. Yet it is not at all likely, that this very agent of Mr.
Lovelace acts a double part between my brother and him: How else can our
family know (so soon too) his menaces upon the passages they hint at?

I assured my aunt, that I was too much ashamed of the treatment I met
with (and that from every one's sake as well as for my own) to acquaint
Mr. Lovelace with the particulars of that treatment, even were the means
of corresponding with him afforded me: that I had reason to think, that
if he were to know of it from me, we must be upon such terms, that
he would not scruple making