Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/305

 but then the condition he thought he must leave me in, at being thus neglected and abandoned by the man I had even gone so far as to confess my love for, softened his whole soul, and all his resolution was lost in tenderness. In short, love, gratitude, honour, friendship, and everything that is most valuable in the human mind, contended which should have the greatest power over him, and by turns exerted themselves in his generous breast. But he was involved in such a perplexing labyrinth, that, whichever way he turned his thoughts, he met with fresh difficulties and new torments. He found it was impossible for him ever to pretend another excuse to delay our marriage; and yet, when he considered Dorimene's furious menaces, his fears for my safety would not suffer him to think of it. "At last it came into his head that he must contrive some method of making the future delaying it come from me; and, for that purpose, disguising his hand in such a manner that it could not be known, he wrote the note which I have already told you I found on my table. I knew not what to make of it, and was filled with horror when I read it; however, it had the desired effect, for I resolved never to marry the Chevalier Dumont till I was acquainted with the cause of this sudden strange alteration in our family, and let into the secret why he now tried, by all ways possible, to shun me. "I accordingly told my brother that I had changed my mind, and, for the present at least, would put off all thoughts of marrying his friend. He looked steadfastly at me, and said, if I knew any reason which concerned him for altering a design in which I had appeared so fixed, it was neither acting like a sister, nor as he deserved from me, to conceal it from him. But before I had time to make him any answer, Dorimene entered the room, and put an end to our discourse.