_To the same_
O my lost child! In thy humiliations at this moment I can sympathize.
The shame that must follow the detection of it is more within my thoughts
at present than the negligence or infatuation that occasioned thy
faults.
I know all. Thy intended husband knew it all. It was from him that the
horrible tidings of thy unfaithfulness to marriage-vows first came.
He visited this city on purpose to obtain an interview with me. He
entered my apartment with every mark of distress. He knew well the effect
of such tidings on my heart. Most eagerly would I have laid down my life
to preserve thy purity spotless.
He demeaned himself as one who loved thee with a rational affection,
and who, however deeply he deplored the loss of thy love, accounted thy
defection from virtue of infinitely greater moment.
I was willing to discredit even his assertion. Far better it was that
the husband should prove the defamer of his wife, than that my darling
child should prove a profligate. But he left me no room to doubt, by
showing me a letter.
He showed it me on condition of my being everlastingly silent to you in
regard to its contents. He yielded to a jealousy which would not be
conquered, and had gotten this letter by surreptitious means. He was
ashamed of an action which his judgment condemned as ignoble and
deceitful.
Far more wise and considerate was this excellent and injured man than
I. He was afraid, by disclosing to you the knowledge he had thus gained,
of rendering you desperate and hardened. As long as reputation was not
gone, he thought your errors were retrievable. He distrusted the success
of his own efforts, and besought me to be your guardian. As to himself, he
resigned the hope of ever gaining your love, and entreated me to exert
myself for dissolving your connection with Colden, merely for your own
sake.
To show me the necessity of my exertions, he had communicated this
letter, believing that my maternal interest in your happiness would
prevent me from making any but a salutary use of it. Yet he had not put
your safety into my hands without a surety. He was so fully persuaded of
the ill consequences of your knowing how much was known, that he had given
me the proofs of your guilt only on my solemn promise to conceal them from
you.
I saw the generosity and force of his representations, and, while I
endeavoured by the most earnest remonstrances to break your union with
Colden, I suffered no particle of the truth to escape me. But you were
hard as a rock. You would not forbid his visits, nor reject his
letters.
I need not repeat to you what followed; by what means I endeavoured to
effect that end which your obstinate folly refused.
When I gave this promise to Talbot, I foresaw not his speedy death and
the consequences to Colden and yourself. I have been affrighted at the
rumour of your marriage; and, to justify the conduct I mean to pursue, I
have revealed to you what I promised to conceal merely because I foresaw
not the present state of your affairs.
You will not be surprised that, on your marriage with this man, I
should withdraw from you what you now hold from my bounty. No faultiness
in you shall induce me to leave you without the means of decent
subsistence; but I owe no benevolence to Colden. My duty will not permit
me to give any thing to your paramour. When you change your name you must
change your habitation and leave behind you whatever you found.
Think not, Jane, that I cease to love thee. I am not so inhuman as to
refuse my forgiveness to a penitent; yet I ask not thy penitence to insure
thee my affection. I have told thee my conditions, and adhere to them
still.
To preclude all bickerings and cavils, I enclose the letter which
attests your fall.