LETTER XII
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 13.
And now, Belford, I can go no farther. The affair is over. Clarissa lives. And I am
Your humble servant, R. LOVELACE.
[The whole of this black transaction is given by the injured lady to Miss Howe, in her subsequent letters, dated Thursday, July 6. See Letters LXVII. LXVIII. LXIX.]
LETTER XIII
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WATFORD, WEDN. JAN. 14.
O thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty hour, for a whole age of repentance!
I am inexpressibly concerned at the fate of this matchless lady! She could not have fallen into the hands of any other man breathing, and suffered as she has done with thee.
I had written a great part of another long letter to try to soften thy flinty heart in her favour; for I thought it but too likely that thou shouldst succeed in getting her back again to the accursed woman’s. But I find it would have been too late, had I finished it, and sent it away. Yet cannot I forbear writing, to urge thee to make the only amends thou now canst make her, by a proper use of the license thou hast obtained.