LETTER III

_Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard_

_Wenbourne-Hill_

Oliver, I am wretched! The feeble Frank Henley is a poor miserable
being! The sun shines, the birds warble, the flowers spring, the buds
are bursting into bloom, all nature rejoices; yet to me this mirth,
this universal joy, seems mockery--Why is this? Why do I suffer my mind
thus to be pervaded by melancholy? Why am I thus steeped in gloom?

She is going--Thursday morning is the time fixed--And what is that to
me?--Madman that I am!--Who am I? Does she, can she, ought she to think
of me?--And why not? Am I not a man; and is she more than mortal?--She
is! She is!--Shew me the mortal who presumes to be her equal!

But what do I wish? What would I have? Is it my intention or my desire
to make her wretched? What! Sink her whom I adore in the estimation of
the world; and render her the scoff of the foolish, the vain, and the
malignant?--I!--I make her wretched!--I!--

Oliver, she treats me with indifference--cold, calm, killing
indifference! Yet kind, heavenly kind even in her coldness! Her
cheerful eye never turns from me, nor ever seeks me. To her I am a
statue--Would I were! Why does she not hate me? Openly and absolutely
hate me!--And could I wish her to love? Do I love? Do I? Dare I? Have I
the temerity so much as to suspect I love?--Who am I? The insignificant
son of--!