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As Catherine remarked, Bella was indeed too close, or rather too modest to confess her love; she considered it too sacred to be expressed by human lips, much less to commit it to paper. But what was the state of her feelings on perusing her innocent and unreserved cousin's letter?

Would that she herself had been so confiding, and revealed the state of her heart, which might have prevented her cousin encouraging a hopeless passion. Hopeless, did she say? What if Catherine's love was returned? She was afraid to ask herself the question. Whom could she blame, when she had left without giving a hint of her intended departure? And what would Charlie think of her leaving in company with him who they both hated? Oh, that she could now explain all, and leave the blame at her father's door. It was now too late; the die was cast, and she must be the sufferer. Her fair and unreserved cousin would gain the prize which she herself had thought was safely locked in her own bosom. Yes, it must be so, for Charlie could not but return her ingenuous and charming cousin's love, when his old playfellow did not as much as bid him adieu! She must now bury her disappointment in the gaitiesgaieties [sic] around her, and obliterate, in the