“I have only to beg, that you will be so good as to permit me to go down to Kent, to my dear parents, who, with many more, are daily rejoicing in your favour and bounty.  I will there” (holding up my folded hands) “pray for you every hour of my life; and for every one who shall be dear to you, not excepting the charming Countess.

“I will never take your name into my lips, nor suffer any other in my hearing, but with reverence and gratitude, for the good I and mine have reaped at your hands:  nor wish to be freed from my obligations to you, except you shall choose to be divorced from me; and if so I will give your wishes all the forwardness I honourably can, with regard to my own character and yours, and that of your beloved baby.

“But you must give me something worth living for along with you; your Billy and mine!—­Unless it is your desire to kill me quite! and then ’tis done, and nothing will stand in your happy Countess’s way, if you tear from my arms my second earthly good, after I am deprived of you, my first.

“I will there, Sir, dedicate all my time to my first duties; happier far, than once I could have hoped to be!  And if, by any accident, and misunderstanding between you, you should part by consent, and you will have it so, my heart shall be ever yours, and my hopes shall be resumed of being an instrument still for your future good, and I will receive your returning ever-valued heart, as if nothing had happened, the moment I can be sure it will be wholly mine.

“For, think not, dear Sir, whatever be your notions of polygamy, that I will, were my life to depend upon it, consent to live with a gentleman, dear as, God is my witness,” (lifting up my tearful eyes) “you are to me, who lives in what I cannot but think open sin with another!  You know, Sir, and I appeal to you for the purity, and I will aver piety of my motives, when I say this, that I would not; and as you do know this, I cannot doubt but nay proposal will be agreeable to you both.  And I beg of you, dear Sir, to take me at my word; and don’t let me be tortured, as I have been so many weeks, with such anguish of mind, that nothing but religious considerations can make supportable to me.”

“And are you in earnest, Pamela?” coming to me, and folding me in his arms over the chair’s back, the seat of which supported my trembling knees, “Can you so easily part with me?”

“I can, Sir, and I will!—­rather than divide my interest in you, knowingly, with any lady upon earth.  But say not, can I part with you.  Sir; it is you that part with me:  and tell me, Sir, tell me but what you had intended should become of me?”

“You talk to me, my dearest life, as if all you had heard against me was true; and you would have me answer you, (would you?) as if it was.”