I wrote to you: and what was your reply? I could scarcely believe my
senses. Every horrid foreboding realized! already such an adept in this
accursed sophistry! the very cant of that detestable sect adopted!

I had plumed myself upon your ignorance. He had taken advantage of
that, I supposed, and had won your esteem by counterfeiting a moral and
pious strain. To make you put him forever at a distance, it was needed
only to tear off his mask. This was done, but, alas, too late for your
safety. The poison was already swallowed.

I had no patience with you, to listen to your trifling and insidious
distinctions,--such as, though you could audaciously urge them to me,
possessed no weight, _could_ possess no weight, in your
understanding. What was it to me whether he was ruffian or madman?
whether, in destroying you, he meant to destroy or to save? Is it proper
to expose your breast to a sword, because the wretch that wields it
supposes madly that it is a straw which he holds in his hand?

But I will not renew the subject. The same motives that induced me to
attempt to reason with you then no longer exist. The anguish, the
astonishment, which your letters, as they gradually unfolded your
character, produced in me, I endeavoured to show you at the time. Now I
pass them over to come to a more important circumstance.

Yet how shall I tell it thee, Jane? I am afraid to intrust it to paper.
Thy fame is still dear to me. I would not be the means of irretrievably
blasting thy fame. Yet what may come of relating some incidents on
paper?

Faint is my hope, but I am not without some hope, that thou canst yet