LETTER XVI.
To the Same.
O My lost child! In thy humiliations at this moment I
can sympathize. The shame that must follow the detection
of it is more within my thoughts at present, than the
negligence or infatuation that occasioned thy faults.
I know all. Thy intended husband knew it all. It was
from him that the horrible tidings of thy unfaithfulness to
marriage vows first came.
He visited this city on purpose to obtain an interview with
me. He entered my apartment with every mark of distress.
He knew well the effect of such tidings on my heart.
Most eagerly would I have laid down my life to preserve
thy purity spotless.
He demeaned himself as one who loved thee, with a rational
affection, and who, however, deeply he deplored the
loss of thy love, accounted thy defection from virtue of
infinitely greater moment.
I was willing to discredit even his assertion. Far better
it was that the husband should prove the defamer of his wife,
than that my darling child should prove a profligate? But
he left me no room to doubt by shewing me a letter.
He shewed it me on condition of my being everlastingly
silent to you in regard to its contents. He yielded to a
jealousy which would not be conquered, and had gotten this
letter by surreptitious means. He was ashamed of an
action which his judgment condemned as ignoble and deceitful.
Far more wise and considerate was this excellent and injured
man than I. He was afraid, by disclosing to you the
knowledge he had thus gained, of rendering you desperate
and hardened. As long as reputation was not gone, he thought
your errors were retrievable. He distrusted the success of
his own efforts, and besought me to be your guardian. As
to himself he resigned the hope of ever gaining your love,
and entreated me to exert myself for dissolving your connexion
with Colden, merely for your own sake.
To show me the necessity of my exertions he had communicated
this letter, believing that my maternal interest in
your happiness, would prevent me from making any but a
salutary use of it. Yet he had not put your safety into my
hands, without a surety. He was so fully persuaded of
the ill consequences of your knowing how much was known,
that he had given me the proofs of your guilt, only on my
solemn promise to conceal them from you.
I saw the generosity and force of his representations, and
while I endeavored by the most earnest remonstrances, to
break your union with Colden, I suffered no particle of the
truth to escape me. But you were hard as a rock. You
would not forbid his visits, nor reject his letters.
I need not repeat to you what followed; by what means
I endeavored to effect that end, which your obstinate folly
refused.
When I gave this promise to Talbot, I foresaw not his
speedy death and the consequences to Colden and yourself.
I have been affrighted at the rumor of your marriage, and
to justify the conduct I mean to pursue, I have revealed to
you, what I promised to conceal, merely because I foresaw
not the present state of your affairs.
You will not be surprised that on your marriage with this
man, I should withdraw from you what you now hold from
my bounty. No faultiness in you shall induce me to leave
you without the means of decent subsistence, but I owe no
benevolence to Colden. My duty will not permit me to
give any thing to your paramour. When you change your
name you must change your habitation and leave behind
you whatever you found.
Think not, Jane, that I cease to love thee. I am not so
inhuman as to refuse my forgiveness to a penitent; yet I
ask not thy penitence to insure thee my affection. I have
told thee my conditions, and adhere to them still.
To preclude all bickerings and cavils, I enclose the letter
which attests your fall.
