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letter will only make them think me a blackguard one.’ Such were my reasonings, as in a sort of desperate carelessness, I copied my wife’s words, and parted with the last relics of Marianne. Her three notes—unluckily they were all in my pocket-book, or I should have denied their existence, and hoarded them for ever—I was forced to put them up, and could not even kiss them. And the lock of hair—that too I had always carried about me in the same pocket-book, which was now searched by Madam with the most engratiating virulence,—the dear lock—all, every memento was torn from me.”

“You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blameable,” said Elinor, while her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion; “you ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby

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or