'As for her denying that she encouraged his declaration, I believe it
not. It is certain the speaking picture, with all that pretended
innocence and bashfulness, would have run away with him. Yes, she would
run away with a fellow that she had been acquainted with (and that not
intimately, if you were as careful as you ought to be) but a few days; at
a time when she had the strongest assurances of my honour to her.
'Well, I think, I now hate her perfectly: and though I will do nothing to
her myself, yet I can bear, for the sake of my revenge, and my injured
honour and slighted love, to see any thing, even what she most fears, be
done to her; and then she may be turned loose to her evil destiny, and
echo to the woods and groves her piteous lamentations for the loss of her
fantastical innocence, which the romantic ideot makes such a work about.
I shall go to London, with my sister Davers; and the moment I can
disengage myself, which, perhaps, may be in three weeks from this time, I
will be with you, and decide her fate, and put an end to your trouble.
Mean time be doubly careful; for this innocent, as I have warned you, is
full of contrivances. I am 'Your friend.'
I had but just read this dreadful letter through, when Mrs.
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