impression I felt at the idea of seeing you. But then, precisely at the
very moment when I believed myself certain that I was going to gaze upon
the beloved features which had been in one interview indelibly engraved
upon my heart, I saw the most disagreeable face appear, and a creature
announced that you were engaged for the whole day, and without giving me
time to utter one word she disappeared! You may imagine my astonishment
and... the rest. The lightning would not have produced upon me a more
rapid, a more terrible effect! If you had sent me a line by that
sister--a line from your hand--I would have gone away, if not pleased, at
least submissive and resigned.

"But that was a fourth fatality which you have forgotten to add to your
delightful and witty justification. Thinking myself scoffed at, my
self-love rebelled, and indignation for the moment silenced love. Shame
overwhelmed me! I thought that everybody could read on my face all the
horror in my heart, and I saw in you, under the outward appearance of an
angel, nothing but a fearful daughter of the Prince of Darkness. My mind
was thoroughly upset, and at the end of eleven days I lost the small
portion of good sense that was left in me--at least I must suppose so, as
it is then that I wrote to you the letter of which you have so good a
right to complain, and which at that time seemed to me a masterpiece of
moderation.

"But I hope it is all over now, and this very day at eleven o'clock you
will see me at your feet--tender, submissive and repentant. You will
forgive me, divine woman, or I will myself avenge you for the insult I
have hurled at you. The only thing which I dare to ask from you as a
great favour is to burn my first letter, and never to mention it again. I
sent it only after I had written four, which I destroyed one after the
other: you may therefore imagine the state of my heart.