Louis warmly applauded her resolution.
"Do not praise me," cried she, "do not call it resolution. I am unworthy of approbation for any thing. I do not resolve; I only feel that I can know no happiness, endure no person, but continue to detest myself, till this guilt is taken from my mind, by a full confession, and prayer for my mother's pardon."
She shewed a letter, which had come in the packet directed to her by Ferdinand, and which he had secured her receiving free from observation, by his apparently whimsical request that each lady would inspect her present alone. The letter contained protestations of inviolable attachment, petitions for her constancy; and exhortations to keep their secret, till the success of the plan he had in view, brought him again to her feet. He had inclosed a miniature of himself in the shawl which was his ostensible present to her. "I will never look on it a second time," said she, "till he removes from himself the guilt of holding me in this wicked undutifulness to my family."
Louis engaged, should he not meet him at Madrid, to forward her letter to Don Ferdinand, and to inclose it in one from himself, enforcing her entreaties with his arguments; and giving his thoughts on the subject, as became his relationship to her, and fraternal regard for her happiness. He assured her, he would do it with a scrupulous attention not to irritate the feelings which had excited her lover to deprive him of her sisterly affection. Aware that her self-accusing state of mind, could not bear up against the representation he would fain have made of Ferdinand's entire selfishness in thus binding her, Louis contented himself with advising Alice, as a restitution she owed to her family for all the misery her melancholy and illness had made them suffer, to dismiss as much as possible all painful retrospections; and to console herself with the conviction that she was now re-treading her steps to the path of duty. "Cheer yourself with this thought," said he, "till the tidings shall arrive which will take the seal from your lips. Then you may confess all, and reconciled, by pardon, to your family and yourself, you will again become the happy Alice."
She wept as he spoke. But it was no more the stormy grief of despair; she shed the balmy tears of penitence and hope. It was the genial shower upon the thirsty ground. "You have spoken comfort to me, Louis. I have not been so happy, since the dawn of the fatal morning, when my impious adjuration called down these months of misery upon my wretched head.—Oh, if Ferdinand could have guessed this, would he have denied me such a comforter!"
Louis gently reminded her, that as he was going, she must seek a comforter in a Superior Being; and in the exertions of her own mind: "you have ever, my Alice," said he, "been the idol of your family; and even to this day, been supported with a watchfulness, as if you were still in infancy: yet, you see, how inadequate has been all this anxiety to preserve you from error, and its consequent sorrows! By experience, you must now feel, that the care of the tenderest relations can be of no permanent effect, unless you assist it with your own circumspection and strength. Look not for comfort from one side or another, till you have found its principle in your own bosom; that is to say, till you resolve to act according to your duty. And this is, not merely to grieve over your fault, and yearn to confess it and be forgiven; but to lay a restraint upon your sensibility, and the violence of your regrets; and from this hour to devote the whole of your mind to the re-establishment of happiness in your family.—Return to your former occupations.—Meditate less upon Don Ferdinand and yourself; and think more of your mother, your sister, and your guardian.—For their sakes, try to be cheerful, and you will be so.—In one word, my dearest Alice, remember, that to perform our duty in this world, we must sustain our own virtue, and not habituate ourselves to the uncertain support of others."
"Why, my dear Louis, have I never heard these sentiments before? With such forewarning, I should never have erred."
"You might have heard them often; for my uncle has frequently talked to me in this way in your presence. But, my sweet Alice was not then awakened to such subjects. You regarded them as grave discourses, in which you could be as little interested as in the map of a country you never intended to visit."
"And I went astray in that very country!" cried she, "simpleton that I was; always to turn away from every thing but the pursuits of a child!"
She was anxious to engage Louis to correspond with her; but as he could not write any thing to her that would not pass under the eye of the whole family, he told her she had best rest satisfied with his exertions for her release; and when he had obtained it from Don Ferdinand, he would then write openly, and tell her all his thoughts on an affair so momentous to her present and future happiness.