Page:ThePrincessofCleves.djvu/196

184 and I know not, if Virtue will not be offended, that I hold any correspondence with a man, whose designs appear to be so much the reverse of those inspired by her. For Heaven's sake, what has emboldened you to hope, from the wife of count Caprera, what you never dared to ask from Anziana? If judging of your innocence by my own, I desired the continuance of your friendship; which of my past actions have given you cause to make so vile a contraction of my meaning? How could you dare suspect me guilty of a dishonourable thought? I told you, indeed, that I was still your lover, but it was with such a kind of love that I regarded you, as angels pay to each other in the realms of bliss; all pure and intellectual, free from all gross desires or earthly appetite. If I look on the breach of my vow to you as a crime, which, though enforced, requires my whole life's penitence to atone; how can you think I would voluntarily violate that I have made to count Caprera before the holy priest? Such love as a chaste brother may to a sister give, I shall rejoice to find from you; and such, and no other, can I pay to you. If you think this worthy your acceptance, and that we can converse together in such a manner as to have nothing to apprehend from our own consciences, we shall be the better enabled to contemn what the world may say of us, should our conversation be discovered; though not to give occasion for censure, I will contrive to keep it as private as possible. Send me word, after you have well examined the nature of your desires, if you can restrain them within the limits I prescribe, and you shall see with what speed I will meet the lover of my soul. But endeavour not to deceive yourself or me; pretend not to be what you are not, nor imagine I do so; or that I am, or ever will be, one step beyond what honour will permit, Your lover, or your friend, .