You must know, then, my Pamela, that I had actually formed such a
project, so well informed was this old rascally Somebody! and the time
was fixed for the very person described in this letter to be here; and I
had thought he should have read some part of the ceremony (as little as
was possible, to deceive you) in my chamber; and so I hoped to have you
mine upon terms that then would have been much more agreeable to me than
real matrimony. And I did not in haste intend you the mortification of
being undeceived; so that we might have lived for years, perhaps, very
lovingly together; and I had, at the same time, been at liberty to
confirm or abrogate it as I pleased.
O sir, said I, I am out of breath with the thoughts of my danger! But
what good angel prevented the execution of this deep-laid design?
Why, your good angel, Pamela, said he; for when I began to consider, that
it would have made you miserable, and me not happy; that if you should
have a dear little one, it would be out of my own power to legitimate it,
if I should wish it to inherit my estate; and that, as I am almost the
last of my family, and most of what I possess must descend to a strange
line, and disagreeable and unworthy persons; notwithstanding that I
might, in this case, have issue of my own body; when I further considered
your untainted virtue, what dangers and trials you had undergone by my
means, and what a world of troubles I had involved you in, only because
you were beautiful and virtuous, which had excited all my passion for
you; and reflected also upon your tried prudence and truth! I, though I
doubted not effecting this my last plot, resolved to overcome myself;
and, however I might suffer in struggling with my affection for you, to
part with you, rather than to betray you under so black a veil.
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