I have not a word to say in my own justification but this:  that I am sure I am acting honestly in telling you the truth.  I would not wish to say a word animadverting on yourself.  If there must be blame in this matter, I am willing to take it all on my own shoulders.  But things have been done of late, and words have been spoken, and habits have displayed themselves, which would not, I am sure, conduce to our mutual comfort in this world, or to our assistance to each other in our struggles to reach the happiness of the world to come.

I think that you will agree with me, Camilla, that when a man or a woman has fallen into such a mistake as that which I have now made, it is best that it should be acknowledged.  I know well that such a change of arrangements as that which I now propose will be regarded most unfavourably.  But will not anything be better than the binding of a matrimonial knot which cannot be again unloosed, and which we should both regret?

I do not know that I need add anything further.  What can I add further?  Only this, that I am inflexible.  Having resolved to take this step and to bear the evil things that may be said of me, for your happiness and for my own tranquillity, I shall not now relinquish my resolution.  I do not ask you to forgive me.  I doubt much whether I shall ever be quite able to forgive myself.  The mistake which I have made is one which should not have been committed.  I do not ask you to forgive me; but I do ask you to pray that I may be forgiven.

Yours, with feelings of the truest friendship,

Thomas Gibson.’

The letter had been very difficult, but he was rather proud of it than otherwise when it was completed.  He had felt that he was writing a letter which not improbably might become public property.  It was necessary that he should be firm, that he should accuse himself a little in order that he might excuse himself much, and that he should hint at causes which might justify the rupture, though he should so veil them as not to appear to defend his own delinquency by ungenerous counter-accusation.  When he had completed the letter, he thought that he had done all this rather well, and he sent the despatch off to Heavitree by the clerk of St. Peter’s Church, with something of that feeling of expressible relief which attends the final conquest over some fatal and all but insuperable misfortune.  He thought that he was sure now that he would not have to marry Camilla on the 29th of the month and there would probably be a period of some hours before he would be called upon to hear or read Camilla’s reply.

Camilla was alone when she received the letter, but she rushed at once to her mother.  ‘There,’ said she; ‘there I knew that it was coming!’ Mrs French took the paper into her hands and gasped, and gazed at her daughter without speaking.  ‘You knew of it, mother.’

‘Yesterday when he told me, I knew of it.’