Deterville's Answer to Zilia.

Alas! Zilia, you permit me to see you, but on what hard conditions! Have you well considered on the request you have made? It is true, I did keep my complaints to myself when last in your presence; but it was a situation, that tho' I felt continual joy in seeing you, yet caused the chief misfortune of my life.

I took the utmost pains to procure you the sight of Aza. I did all in my power to gratify your passion for him, though it was death to myself, even at a time that I suspected his inconstancy; instead of giving myself up to the flattering hopes which I might then naturally have indulged, my mind was afflicted, because it was a circumstance which made you unhappy; but Aza came, he again beheld your charms, he found you the same faithful tender Zilia, whose mind was entirely filled with his idea, and the desire you had to make him happy.

What a triumph ought it to have been for him to see those knots, the precious monuments of your tenderness! What heart but his would not have rejoiced in such chains? or indeed what heart but his could ever have broken them? As it was impossible for me to conceive him capable of such ingratitude, what was there remaining for me but to die. I determined to leave you for ever, and rather than not do that, to fly my country and my family. I could not, however, help indulging the melancholy pleasure of making you acquainted with my resolution.

Celina, moved to the greatest degree by my unhappy destiny, took upon herself the delivery of the letter to you; and the time she chose for it, Zilia, was, as you have informed me, that moment that the faithless Aza appeared before you. Undoubtedly, the tender compassion of Celina for an unhappy brother, made her find a secret pleasure in embittering those moments, which were to have been given up to joy. She was not mistaken in thinking that would be the case.