My sighs and tears leaving me no longer the power of speech, I sunk down on my bed, oppressed with a mortal grief.
Urinoe and Toxares drew near to comfort me, and said all that sensible and discreet persons could think of to alleviate my despair.
Though I have heard that Sydimiris is married, replied I, without dying immediately; yet do not imagine that I will suffer this odious life to continue long. If sorrow do not quickly dispatch me, I will seek death by other means; for since Sydimiris is lost, I have no more business in the world.
The charitable Urinoe and Toxares endeavoured in vain to divert me from this sad resolution, when Urinoe, finding all their reasonings ineffectual, drew a letter out of her pocket, and presenting it to me, I had orders, said she, not to let this letter be delivered to you till you had left the town; but the despair to which I see you reduced, does, I conceive, dispense with my rigorous observation of those directions.
While Urinoe was speaking, I opened this letter, trembling, and found it as follows.
[Chapter VII.]
Containing an incident full as probable as any in Scudery's Romances.
"SYDIMIRIS, TO BELLMOUR.
"If that proof of my gratitude, which I promised to give you, fall short of your expectations; blame not the defect of my will, but the rigour of my destiny: it was by this only way I could give you liberty; nor is it too dearly bought by the loss of all my happiness, if you receive it as you ought. Had I been allowed to follow my own inclinations, there is no man in the world I would have preferred to yourself. I owe this confession to the remembrance of your affection, of which you gave me so generous an instance; and the use I expect you will make of it, is to console you under a misfortune, which is common to us both; though I haply have most reason to complain, since I could not be just to you, without being cruel at the same time, or confer a benefit, without loading you with a misfortune. If the sacrifice I have made of myself for your sake, gives me any claim to the continuance of your love, I command you, by the power it gives me over you, to live, and not add to the miseries of my condition the grief of being the cause of your death. Remember, I will look upon your disobedience, as an act of the most cruel ingratitude; and your compliance with this request shall ever be esteemed as the dearest mark you can give of that passion you have borne to the unfortunate
"SYDIMIRIS."