In continuation
Four and twenty hours longer of fruitless expectation did I endure in that cell. No Sibella appeared. Did she then forget her request? Painting her future delights with Montgomery, has she forgotten the unblessed wretch, who for her sake could sustain hunger and cold, watching and weariness, who to hail the same breeze that had saluted her, quitted every indulgence of luxury for an abode that held comfort at defiance, who stretched himself along the bare stone rather than on a bed of down, because from that sleepless couch he could spring, to gain an indistinct view of her bewitching form?
Ay, pour your contempt upon me, ye whose smiles I have beguiled you of!—View him who bought your unprized tenderness with the empty breath of flattery, view him, stealing slave-like into forbidden paths only to gaze at humble distance, only to catch the echo of a sigh, a sigh breathed to another!——He, Miss Ashburn, who lives without hope—must die for consolation.
Yet, surely this her absence cannot arise from so more than common an instance of insensibility; some accident may have prevented her return; and I am capricious and cruel, while I dare to accuse her of insensibility. John Thomas met me, as I returned to the farm. He was carrying malt to the castle. I will throw myself in his way when he comes home; and probably, amidst the abundance of information he will be eager to communicate, I may find something which will elucidate this strange absence of Miss Valmont.
Little remains, Madam, for me to add to my confessions. Sibella's tender but romantic contract placed an eternal barrier between me and the flattering illusions wherewith fancy fled my flame. I saw she loved as I had wished her to love: had I been the object!—In the first moments of phrenzy, I wrote Montgomery a mad letter; and no sooner recovered a better frame of mind, than I dispatched one of apology, which both made my peace, and quieted his astonishment, for he is not given to look beyond the surface.
Hours, Miss Ashburn, have I spent in wishing Montgomery worthier of his fate. Sometimes, have I calmed my swelling agony by reproaching her for loving him, then have humbled my proud heart to dust, to obtain her ideal pardon. Her seclusion, her enthusiasm, his reducing countenance, his vivacity of spirit, and above all his well expressed vehemence of love! Oh it could not be otherwise! She saw an outline: her imagination formed the rest.
No, not one single instance of self-reproach on Clement's account ever assailed me. When I first discovered that Montgomery's beloved was the selected friend of Miss Ashburn, I then knew they might be paired, but never mated. To rival him with one woman, methought could be little injury, when in her absence twenty others equally could charm.
After Miss Valmont had irrevocably given herself to Clement, I resolved to travel, for to the antipodes would I have journeyed, rather than met Montgomery. Yet I tutored my heart into the supposition that I still had a friendship for him, that Sibella had injured me, and was now not a jot beyond my friend, or my friend's wife. Dwelling on the delusion, it insensibly produced a desire, when Clement went to London, of returning to my hermitage, to her park, in order to behold her with firm composure, with almost indifference.—Self-devoted victim that I am.
'I can do her service,' said I to myself; 'and I can prevent her suspecting aught of the former intruder. Wishes she must have; something to alleviate the tedious uniformity of her existence.' And numberless plans to gratify and amuse her, without my having any apparent concern therein, I quickly resolved upon.
You recollect Madam, (perchance with disdain) my abrupt departure from Bath.—Farmer Richardson rejoiced to see me. John Thomas was yet brimful of Miss Valmont and the ghost. When these industrious labourers of the day retired to early rest, I betook myself to the now bleak and desolate hermitage. No sooner had I deposited my lanthorn and little basket, than I left my cell intending to revisit, not with rapture but regret, her selected paths.