Pardon, Louisa! I do not address myself to you! Too well I know my friend to doubt her! No cold delay, no unfeeling negligence, no rash phrensy is to be feared from her!—Alas! What I am writing she will never read! It cannot be! The man I have to encounter is too practised in deceit, or I should not have been where I am!
Well then, may he himself read! And while he reads, thus let his conscience speak—'There is a man whose worth and virtues are such, that the loss of him would be a loss to the whole human race. From this man I received a thousand acts of kindness: for which I returned ten thousand insults. I repulsed him, scorned him, struck him; and he, disregarding the innumerable injuries I had done him, but a few hours after plunged headlong down the dreadful abyss, to snatch me from the grave. I was dead and he gave me life. In return I have robbed him of what men prize even more than life, of liberty. But if I have put him in jeopardy, if I suffer him to remain in the power of hardened and wicked men, and if he perish, mercy cannot pardon me, justice cannot punish, and charity itself must hold me in abhorrence.'
A. W. ST. IVES
LETTER CXV
Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax
London, Dover-Street
My actions are now become one continued chain of artifice. But were that all, and were not the objects of this artifice of a nature so new and so painful, it would afford me amusement, and not be any cause of vexation.
As it is I feel apprehensions which are wholly different from any I ever felt before. To deceive in countries where deception is a pastime, authorised, practised, and applauded, is I find something very opposite to what would seem the same thing, in this gloomy land of apathy and phlegm. There it is a sport and a pleasure. Here it is a business of serious danger and general detestation. But no matter!
I am obliged to watch times and seasons, for I have little doubt that I myself am watched. That old housekeeper I am sure suspects me; and her affection for her mistress is so full, so restless, that it cannot but sharpen her intellects, and make her employ every engine she can imagine for discovery. I walked up to Fozard's as I often do for my horse, and I saw one of Sir Arthur's servants pass the yard, soon after I entered it. I have little doubt but he was dogging me.
I got on horseback and rode slowly down toward Pimlico, and over
Westminster bridge, but I saw no more of him.