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304 blame as you will, but do not hastily or too harshly condemn.

"After liberating her husband from the hands of persecution, her first act was to procure bail for myself. I could not refuse to accompany her, nor did I dare to remain!

"Nothing now remains but to inform you, that when, her husband having sunk under the weight of sorrow and of sickness, she has turned away to weep her loss in secret, I have acted as her comforter. In a word, I have ever been to her a brother, she more to me than sister, from our childhood. But little did she guess how dearly preserved, how severely tried, had been my devotion for her.

"In a moment of confidence, while speaking of the empire she had exercised over me from infancy, I was hurried on to avow the trespass, to give it no worse a name, of which, in her behalf, I had been guilty towards you. She was thunderstruck; but it was too late to recall my words; she fainted away. After she had recovered from her first stupor of grief and astonishment, I began to fear the loss of her esteem even more seriously than of her life before. Indeed since then she can scarcely be said to live, and assures me shall never know peace until a full acquittal has been made.