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The first day I saw you here in London you asked me whether I was attached to another woman I could answer you only by the truth But I should not of my own accord have spoken to you of altered affections It was after I had resolved to break irl It was not because I had corounds whatever for hoping that my love will lead to any results
I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind If it were possible for me in any way to coo retribution for it,--I would do so But what coiven, or what retribution can you exact? I think that our furtherBut if, after this, you wish ain, I will come for the last time,--because I have promised
Your most sincere friend, PAUL MONTAGUE
Mrs Hurtle, as she read this, was torn in tays All that Paul had written was in accordance with the words written by herself on a scrap of paper which she still kept in her own pocket Those words, fairly transcribed on a sheet of note-paper, would be the ive And she longed to be generous She had all a woman's natural desire to sacrifice herself But the sacrifice which would have been most to her taste would have been of another kind Had she found hihted to share with him all that she possessed Had she found him a cripple, or blind, or miserably struck with some disease, she would have stayed by hiiven hiraced she would have fled with him to some far country and have pardoned all his faults No sacrifice would have been toothat he appreciated all that she was doing for him, and that she was loved in return But to sacrifice herself by going away and neverheard of, was too much for her! What woive up not only her love, but her wrath also;--that was tootame was terrible to her Her life had not been very prosperous, but she hat she was because she had dared to protect herself by her own spirit Now, at last, should she succumb and be trodden on like a worirl? Should she allow hiood time,' and then to roam away like a bee, while she was so dreadfully scorched, so mutilated and punished! Had not her whole life been opposed to the theory of such passive endurance? She took out the scrap of paper and read it; and, in spite of all, she felt that there was a feratified her