In short, I thought it, on re-perusal, a half-distracted one:  but I then despaired, (were I to begin again,) of writing better:  so I let it go:  and can have no excuse for directing it as I did, if the cause of the incoherence in it will not furnish me with a very pitiable one.

The letter I received from your mother was a dreadful blow to me.  But nevertheless it had the good effect upon me (labouring, as I did just then, under a violent fit of vapourish despondency, and almost yielding to it) which profuse bleeding and blisterings have in paralytic or apoplectical strokes; reviving my attention, and restoring me to spirits to combat the evils I was surrounded by—­sluicing off, and diverting into a new channel, (if I may be allowed another metaphor,) the overcharging woes which threatened once more to overwhelm my intellects.

But yet I most sincerely lamented, (and still lament,) in your mother’s words, That I cannot be unhappy by myself:  and was grieved, not only for the trouble I had given you before; but for the new one I had brought upon you by my inattention.

[She then gives the substance of the letters she wrote to Mrs. Norton, to
      Lady Betty Lawrance, and to Mrs. Hodges; as also of their answers;
      whereby she detected all Mr. Lovelace’s impostures.  She proceeds
      as follows:]

I cannot, however, forbear to wonder how the vile Tomlinson could come at the knowledge of several of the things he told me of, and which contributed to give me confidence in him.*

* The attentive reader need not be referred back for what the Lady nevertheless could not account for, as she knew not that Mr. Lovelace had come at Miss Howe’s letters; particularly that in Vol.  IV.  Letter XXIX. which he comments upon in Letter XLIV. of the same volume.

I doubt not that the stories of Mrs. Fretchville and her house would be found as vile as any of the rest, were I to inquire; and had I not enough, and too much, already against the perjured man.

How have I been led on!—­What will be the end of such a false and perjured creature!  Heaven not less profaned and defied by him than myself deceived and abused!  This, however, against myself I must say, That if what I have suffered be the natural consequence of my first error, I never can forgive myself, although you are so partial in my favour, as to say, that I was not censurable for what passed before my first escape.

And now, honoured Madam, and my dearest Miss Howe, who are to sit in judgment upon my case, permit me to lay down my pen with one request, which, with the greatest earnestness, I make to you both:  and that is, That you will neither of you open your lips in relation to the potions and the violences I have hinted at.—­Not that I am solicitous, that my disgrace should be hidden from the world, or that it should not be generally known, that the man has proved a villain to me:  for this, it seems, every body but myself expected from his character.  But suppose, as his actions by me are really of a capital nature, it were insisted upon that I should appear to prosecute him and his accomplices in a court of justice, how do you think I could bear that?