though you could not help it?

Moreover, Pamela, it was but doing justice to the libertine himself
to tell your mother the whole truth, that she might know he was not so
very abandoned, but he could stop short of the execution of his wicked
purposes, which he apprehended, if pursued, would destroy the life,
that, of all lives, he would choose to preserve; and you owed also
thus much to your parents' peace of mind, that, after all their
distracting fears for you, they might see they had reason to rejoice
in an uncontaminated daughter. And one cannot but reflect, now he has
made you his wife, that it must be satisfaction to the wicked man, as
well as to yourself, that he was not more guilty than he _was_, nor
took more liberties than he _did_.

For my own part, I must say, that I could not have accounted for your
fits, by any descriptions short of those you give; and had you been
less particular in the circumstances, I should have judged he had been
still _worse_, and your person, though not your mind, less pure, than
his pride would expect from the woman he should marry; for this is
the case of all rakes, that though they indulge in all manner of
libertinism themselves, there is no class of men who exact greater
delicacy from the persons they marry, though they care not how bad
they make the wives, the sisters, and daughters of others.

I will only add (and send all my three letters together), that we all
blame you in some degree for bearing the wicked Jewkes in your sight,
after her most impudent assistance in his lewd attempt; much less, we
think, ought you to have left her in her place, and rewarded her; for
her vileness could hardly be equalled by the worst actions of the most
abandoned procuress.