Cosenza
I can never sufficiently thank you for the indefatigable friendship you have displayed in the whole progress of my Spanish affairs. I have just received a letter from the first minister of that court, by which I am convinced that it cannot be long before they be terminated in the most favourable manner. I scarcely know how, after all the obligations you have conferred upon me, to intreat that you would complete them, by paying a visit to Zamora before you quit the kingdom, and putting my affairs there in some train, which from the negligence incident to a disputed title, can scarcely fail to be in disorder.
Believe me there is nothing for which I have more ardently longed, than to clasp you once again in my arms. The additional procrastination which this new journey will create, cannot be more afflicting to you than it is to me. Abridge then, I intreat you, as much as possible, those delays which are in some degree inevitable, and let me have the agreeable surprize of holding my St. Julian to my breast before I imagined I had reason to expect his return.
Letter X
The Answer
Zamora
My dear lord,
It is with the utmost pleasure that I have it now in my power to assure you that your affair is finally closed at the court of Madrid, in a manner the most advantageous and honourable to your name and family. You will perceive from the date of this letter that I had no need of the request you have made in order to remind me of my duty to my friend. I was no sooner able to quit the capital with propriety, than I immediately repaired hither. The derangement however of your affairs at this place is greater than either of us could have imagined, and it will take a considerable time to reduce them to that order, which shall render them most beneficial to the peasant, and most productive to the lord.
The employment which I find at this place, serves in some degree to dissipate the anguish of my mind. It is an employment embellished by innocence, and consecrated by friendship. It is therefore of all pursuits that which has the greatest tendency to lull the sense of misery.
Rinaldo, I had drawn the pangs of absence with no flattering pencil. I had expressed them in the most harsh and aggravated colours. But dark and gloomy as were the prognostics I had formed to myself, they, alas, were but shadows of what was reserved for me. The event laughs to scorn the conceptions I had entertained. Explain to me, best, most faithful of friends, for you only can, what dark and portentous meaning is concealed beneath the silence of Matilda. So far from your present epistle assisting the conjectures of my madding brain, it bewilders me more than ever. My friend dates his letter from the very place in which she resides, and yet by not a single word does he inform me how, and what she is.