crediting the authenticity of the letter, I gave him time for reflection, and an opportunity to disavow it, should honour or tenderness soften him to do me justice.
In a thousand reflections of this kind, I passed the intervening time of his absence; and when I heard his voice at the door speaking to a servant, my heart fluttered almost from its enclosure. He entered the room with an air of haughtiness, mixed with complacency, rather assumed than natural, and bespoke different feelings from those I had observed when he left me. I had time for those remarks, as he deliberately shut the door, took off his hat, and drew a chair close to mine.
"Louisa," said he, in a firm tone, "I come not now to indulge in foolish expressions of a romantic passion, which your own understanding must inform you cannot long exist. I do not pretend to exculpate myself from blame, by pleading the violence of love as an excuse for duplicity; now that the veil is withdrawn, when passion has subsided, I
