Alas, my friend, I can say this now; these
thoughts came to me when I played with you; and you seemed to me
so great even then that I would not have you owe the gift to
pity----What is this that I have written?
"I have taken back all my letters; I am flinging them one by one
on the fire; they are burning. You will never know what they
confessed--all the love and the passion and the madness----
"I will say no more, Armand; I will stop. I will not say
another word of my feelings. If my prayers have not echoed from
my soul through yours, I also, woman that I am, decline to owe
your love to your pity. It is my wish to be loved, because you
cannot choose but love me, or else to be left without mercy. If
you refuse to read this letter, it shall be burnt. If, after you
have read it, you do not come to me within three hours, to be
henceforth forever my husband, the one man in the world for me;
then I shall never blush to know that this letter is in your
hands, the pride of my despair will protect my memory from all
insult, and my end shall be worthy of my love. When you see me
no more on earth, albeit I shall still be alive, you yourself
will not think without a shudder of the woman who, in three
hours' time, will live only to overwhelm you with her tenderness;
a woman consumed by a hopeless love, and faithful--not to
memories of past joys--but to a love that was slighted.
"The Duchesse de la Valliere wept for lost happiness and
vanished power; but the Duchesse de Langeais will be happy that
she may weep and be a power for you still.
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