Stay, stay, where you are! I intreat, I conjure you, never never think of returning, at least, not to me. I ought never to see you more; for now, alas, I can never behold you as I ought. Where wert thou my tender friend, my only safeguard, my guardian angel? When thou withdrewest, ruin instantly ensued. Was that fatal absence of yours so indispensable, so necessary, and couldest thou leave thy friend in the most critical time of danger? What an inexhaustible fund of remorse hast thou laid up for thyself by so blameable a neglect! It will be as bitter, as lasting, as my unhappy sorrows. Thy loss is indeed as irretrievable as my own, and it were equally difficult to gain another friend as worthy of yourself, as alas! it is impossible to recover my innocence.
Ah! what have I said? I can neither speak nor yet be silent; and to what purpose were my silence, when my very sorrows would cry out against me? And does not all created nature upbraid me with my guilt? Does not every object before me remind me of my shame? I will, I must pour my whole soul into thine, or my poor heart will burst. Canst thou hear all this, my secure and careless friend, without applying some reproaches at the least to thyself? Even thy faith and truth, the blind confidence of thy friendship, but above all thy pernicious indulgencies, have been the unhappy instruments of my destruction.
What evil genius could inspire you to invite him to return; him, alas! who is now the cruel author of my disgrace? And am I indebted to his care for a life, which he has since made insupportable by his cruelty? Inhuman as he is, let him fly from me for ever, and deny himself the savage pleasure, of being an eye witness of my sorrows. But why do I rave thus? He is not to be blamed, I alone am guilty. I alone am the author of my own misfortunes, and should therefore be the only object of anger and resentment. But vice, new as it is to me, has already infected my very soul; and the first dismal effect of it is displayed in reviling the innocent.
No, no, he was ever incapable of being false to his vows. His virtuous soul disdains the low artifice of imposing upon credulity, or of injuring her he loves. Doubtless, he is much more experienced in the tender passions than I ever was, since he found no difficulty to overcome himself, and I alas fell a victim to my unruly desires. How often have I been a witness of his struggles and his victory, and when the violence of his transports seemed to get the better of his reason, he would stop on a sudden, as if awed and checked by virtue, when he might have led on to certain triumph. I indulged myself too much in beholding so dangerous an object. I was afflicted at his sighs, moved with his intreaties, and melted with his tears; I shared his anxieties when I thought I was only pitying them. I have seen him so affected, that he seemed ready to faint at my feet. Love alone might perhaps have been my security; but compassion, O my Clara! has fatally undone me.
Thus my unhappy passion assumed the form of humanity, the more easily to deprive me of the assistance of my virtue. That very day he had been particularly importunate and pressed me to elope with him. This proposal, connected as it was with the misery and distress of the best of parents, shocked my very soul; nor could I think with any patience, of thus imbittering their comforts. The impossibility of ever fulfilling our plighted troth, the necessity there was of concealing this impossibility from him, the regret which I felt at deceiving so tender and passionate a lover, after having flattered his expectations; all these were dreadful circumstances which lessened my resolution, increased my weakness, blinded and subdued my reason. I was then either to kill my parents, discard my lover, or ruin myself: without knowing what I did, I resolved on the latter; and forgetting every thing else, thought only of my love. Thus one unguarded minute has betrayed me to endless misery. I am fallen into the abyss of infamy from whence there is no return, and if I am to live, it is only to be wretched.
However, while I am here, sorrow shall be my only comfort. You, my dearest friend, are my only resource; oh do not, do not leave me! and since I am lost to the sweets of love, oh never take from me the delicacy of friendship. I have lost all pretensions, but my situation makes it requisite, my distresses now demand it. If you cannot esteem, you may at least pity so wretched a creature. Come then, my dear Clara, and open thy whole heart, that I may pour in my complaints, receive thy friend's tears, and shield, oh shield me from myself! Convince me, by the kind continuance of your soothing friendship, that I am not so entirely forsaken.
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