depends on your compliance. As yet my heart is free; I shall
separate from you with regret, but not with despair. Stay here,
and a few weeks will sacrifice my happiness on the altar of your
charms. You are but too interesting, too amiable! I should love
you, I should doat on you! My bosom would become the prey of
desires which Honour and my profession forbid me to gratify. If
I resisted them, the impetuosity of my wishes unsatisfied would
drive me to madness: If I yielded to the temptation, I should
sacrifice to one moment of guilty pleasure my reputation in this
world, my salvation in the next. To you then I fly for defence
against myself. Preserve me from losing the reward of thirty
years of sufferings! Preserve me from becoming the Victim of
Remorse! YOUR heart has already felt the anguish of hopeless
love; Oh! then if you really value me, spare mine that anguish!
Give me back my promise; Fly from these walls. Go, and you bear
with you my warmest prayers for your happiness, my friendship, my
esteem and admiration: Stay, and you become to me the source of
danger, of sufferings, of despair! Answer me, Matilda; What is
your resolve?'--She was silent--'Will you not speak, Matilda?
Will you not name your choice?'

'Cruel! Cruel!' She exclaimed, wringing her hands in agony; 'You
know too well that you offer me no choice! You know too well that
I can have no will but yours!'

'I was not then deceived! Matilda's generosity equals my
expectations.'

'Yes; I will prove the truth of my affection by submitting to a
decree which cuts me to the very heart. Take back your promise.