“Farewell, Mathilda.  I go with the belief that I have your pardon.  Your gentle nature would not permit you to hate your greatest enemy and though I be he, although I have rent happiness from your grasp;[38] though I have passed over your young love and hopes as the angel of destruction, finding beauty and joy, and leaving blight and despair, yet you will forgive me, and with eyes overflowing with tears I thank you; my beloved one, I accept your pardon with a gratitude that will never die, and that will, indeed it will, outlive guilt and remorse.

“Farewell for ever!”

The moment I finished this letter I ordered the carriage and prepared to follow my father.  The words of his letter by which he had dissuaded me from this step were those that determined me.  Why did he write them?  He must know that if I believed that his intention was merely to absent himself from me that instead of opposing him it would be that which I should myself require—­or if he thought that any lurking feeling, yet he could not think that, should lead me to him would he endeavour to overthrow the only hope he could have of ever seeing me again; a lover, there was madness in the thought, yet he was my lover, would not act thus.  No, he had determined to die, and he wished to spare me the misery of knowing it.  The few ineffectual words he had said concerning his duty were to me a further proof—­and the more I studied the letter the more did I perceive a thousand slight expressions that could only indicate a knowledge that life was now over for him.  He was about to die!  My blood froze at the thought:  a sickening feeling of horror came over me that allowed not of tears.  As I waited for the carriage I walked up and down with a quick pace; then kneeling and passionately clasping my hands I tried to pray but my voice was choked by convulsive sobs—­Oh the sun shone[,] the air was balmy—­he must yet live for if he were dead all would surely be black as night to me![39]

The motion of the carriage knowing that it carried me towards him and that I might perhaps find him alive somewhat revived my courage:  yet I had a dreadful ride.  Hope only supported me, the hope that I should not be too late[.] I did not weep, but I wiped the perspiration from my brow, and tried to still my brain and heart beating almost to madness.  Oh!  I must not be mad when I see him; or perhaps it were as well that I should be, my distraction might calm his, and recall him to the endurance of life.  Yet untill I find him I must force reason to keep her seat, and I pressed my forehead hard with my hands—­Oh do not leave me; or I shall forget what I am about—­instead of driving on as we ought with the speed of lightning they will attend to me, and we shall be too late.  Oh!  God help me!  Let him be alive!  It is all dark; in my abject misery I demand no more:  no hope, no good:  only passion, and guilt, and horror; but alive!  Alive!  My sensations choked me—­No tears fell yet I sobbed, and breathed short and hard; one only thought possessed me, and I could only utter one word, that half screaming was perpetually on my lips; Alive!  Alive!—­