She then gave me a letter, and I read as follows.
'Should you imagine, Lydia, that because I have long forborn all intercourse with you I have forgotten you, be assured you are mistaken. I have treated you so shamefully, and deceived you so often, that I have little right to expect you should believe my professions, be moved by my intreaties, or remember me with any other feelings than those of hatred. Yet, to deal sincerely with you, this is what I do not expect. I have had such proofs of the kindness of your heart, and the strength of your affection, that my confidence is still entire.
'It is the more unshaken because my own intentions are direct: of which the plainness with which I shall deliver my thoughts will I imagine be some proof.
'I once more repeat, I have behaved to you like a —— Spare me the word. It is enough to recollect that I have been the thing. I could plead the extreme vivacity of my youth, my ungovernable passions, and the dangerous temptation of critical moments; but that I will not exhibit any feature of pitiful apology, or endeavour to extenuate what I cannot defend.
'You are intimate with Mr. Trevor. You know that his mother, my late wife, is dead; and you have heard of a will, said to have been left by my uncle. I feel but little scruple in affirming that I imbibed many of the vices of my early youth from being placed under this uncle's care. That such a man should die like a coward, and endeavour to disinherit a relation to save his soul, supposing this disinheritance to be true, would be no miracle. It would only be an act of contemptible stupidity.
'I will not here enter into any enquiries of a legal kind: for I will be open enough to own that, being in possession both in right of my wife and as the heir of my uncle of the property he left, and determined as I am to assert my claims, which I think paramount to those of any other person, I will not commit myself even to you. On the contrary, I write this letter purposely that you may shew it to Mr. Trevor.
'You will ask my motive for this, and perhaps will be surprised at my answer.
'By certain whimsical accidents, I have become acquainted with Mr. Trevor's principles. I believe, or I rather know, him to be possessed of a heart and understanding equally excellent. I wish to appeal to them both. When he shall read this, he will have had a conversation relating to me; which may have led him to expect the language I am about to use. In an argument concerning property he cannot forget that he lately delivered himself thus:
"If I strictly adhere to the principle of justice, I must not singly consider my own wishes; which may create innumerable false wants, and crave to have them gratified. I must ask is there no being, within my knowledge, who may be more benefited by the enjoyment of that which I am desirous to appropriate to myself than I can? If so, what right have I to prefer self gratification to superior utility?"
'Mine is a case in point.