“But I have at length determined to triumph over everything.  Friendship, madam, is extinguished between us, but that which no longer exists still has its rights, and I respect them.

“I have not forgotten your goodness to me, and you may, on my part, expect as much gratitude as it is possible to have towards a person I no longer can love.  All further explanation would be useless.  I have in my favor my own conscience, and I return you your letter.

“I wished to quit the Hermitage, and I ought to have done it.  My friends pretend I must stay there until spring; and since my friends desire it I will remain there until that season if you will consent to my stay.”

After writing and despatching this letter all I thought of was remaining quiet at the Hermitage and taking care of my health; of endeavoring to recover my strength, and taking measures to remove in the spring without noise or making the rupture public.  But these were not the intentions either of Grimm or Madam d’Epinay, as it will presently appear.

A few days afterwards, I had the pleasure of receiving from Diderot the visit he had so frequently promised, and in which he had as constantly failed.  He could not have come more opportunely; he was my oldest friend:  almost the only one who remained to me; the pleasure I felt in seeing him, as things were circumstanced, may easily be imagined.  My heart was full, and I disclosed it to him.  I explained to him several facts which either had not come to his knowledge, or had been disguised or suppressed.  I informed him, as far as I could do it with propriety, of all that had passed.  I did not affect to conceal from him that with which he was but too well acquainted, that a passion equally unreasonable and unfortunate, had been the cause of my destruction; but I never acknowledged that Madam d’Houdetot had been made acquainted with it, or at least that I had declared it to her.  I mentioned to him the unworthy manoeuvres of Madam d’ Epinay to intercept the innocent letters her sister-in-law wrote to me.  I was determined he should hear the particulars from the mouth of the persons whom she had attempted to seduce.  Theresa related them with great precision; but what was my astonishment when the mother came to speak, and I heard her declare and maintain that nothing of this had come to her knowledge?  These were her words from which she would never depart.  Not four days before she herself had recited to me all the particulars Theresa had just stated, and in presence of my friend she contradicted me to my face.  This, to me, was decisive, and I then clearly saw my imprudence in having so long a time kept such a woman near me.  I made no use of invective; I scarcely deigned to speak to her a few words of contempt.  I felt what I owed to the daughter, whose steadfast uprightness was a perfect contrast to the base monoeuvres of the mother.  But from the instant my resolution was taken relative to the old woman, and I waited for nothing but the moment to put it into execution.