Miss Rich. Is it true, Mr. Honeywood, that you are setting off, without taking leave of your friends? The report is, that you are quitting England. Can it be?
Honeyw. Yes, madam; and though I am so unhappy as to have fallen under your displeasure, yet, thank Heaven, I leave you to happiness; to one who loves you, and deserves your love; to one who has power to procure you affluence, and generosity to improve your enjoyment of it.
Miss Rich. And are you sure, sir, that the gentleman you mean is what you describe him?
Honeyw. I have the best assurances of it, his serving me. He does, indeed, deserve the highest happiness, and that is in your power to confer. As for me, weak and wavering as I have been, obliged by all and incapable of serving any, what happiness can I find, but in solitude? What hope, but in being forgotten?
Miss Rich. A thousand! to live among friends that esteem you; whose happiness it will be to be permitted to oblige you.
Honeyw. No, madam; my resolution is fixed. Inferiority among strangers is easy; but among those that once were equals, insupportable. Nay, to show you how far my resolution can go, I can now speak with calmness of my former follies, my vanity, my dissipation, my weakness. I will even confess, that, among the number of my other presumptions, I had the insolence to think of loving you. Yes, madam, while I was pleading the passion of another, my heart was tortured with its own. But it is over, it was unworthy our friendship, and let it be forgotten.
Miss Rich. You amaze me!
Honeyw. But you'll forgive it, I know you will; since the confession should not have come from me even now, but to convince you of the sincerity of my intention of—never mentioning it more.
Going.
Miss Rich. Stay, sir, one moment—Ha! he here—