"
Here she sank on a sofa, and again wept bitterly.
"I feel," said she, "now, but it is too late--I feel that I have acted
wrongly in quitting Bordeaux. There I was loved and respected; and
if not happy, at least I was composed. Too much dependence on my
resolution, and the vanity of supposing myself superior in magnanimity
to the rest of my sex, induced me to trust myself in your society.
Dearly, alas! have I paid for it. My only chance of victory over
myself was flight from you, after I had given the irrevocable
sentence; by not doing so, the poison has again found its way to my
heart. I feel that I love you; that I cannot have you; and that death,
very shortly, must terminate my intolerable sufferings."
This affecting address pierced me to the soul; and now the
consequences of my guilt and duplicity rushed upon me like a torrent
through a bursting flood-gate. I would have resigned Emily, I would
have fled with Eugenia to some distant country, and buried our sorrows
in each other's bosoms; and, in a state of irrepressible emotion, I
proposed this step to her.
"What do I hear, my beloved?" said she (starting up with horror from
the couch on which she was sitting, with her face between her knees),
"what! is it you that would resign home, friends, character, the
possession of a virtuous woman, all, for the polluted smiles of an ----"
"Hold! hold! my Eugenia," said I; "do not, I beseech you, shock my
ears with an epithet which you do not deserve! Mine, mine, is all the
guilt; forget me, and you will still be happy.
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