To the Chevalier Dubois, at Malta.

I again resume the subject, my dear Dubois, and go on where I left off in my last.

“When St. Far had been absent about a fortnight, continued Maria, as I was sitting in the garden, ruminating on what could be the cause of this strange silence, a servant brought me a letter: the superscription told me it came from my lover. I opened it hastily; it was truly obscure. He lamented the loss of his mother in the most pathetic terms, but gave some dark hints of a misfortune which touched him still nearer than her death. The conclusion was such as I could by no means fathom. These were his words: “Oh! Maria, how hard to renounce sentiments so dear, and once so cherished! Alas! must that passion which I looked on as my glory, now become my shame! Horror shocks my soul. Oh, Maria! when you are acquainted with my misfortunes, your tender mind will feel all the distress with which mine is overwhelmed. I can no more pity, but do not condemn St. Far.”

What could I think? I formed a thousand conjectures, but none that could give the least light into this cruel secret. I leave you, my dear friend, to guess at my sensations in this fatal moment; for I am utterly unable to describe them: but surely nothing more dreadful can be conceived, than the seeing all my promised happiness thus overthrown, without being at all able to discover by what means.

I held the letter in my hand in a kind of stupid grief, while the tears trick-led down my cheeks, almost insensibly. In this condition I was surprised by my father, who started at the sight of me; but recovering a little, I see, Maria, says he, you have received a letter; may I know the contents? I presented it to him without speaking a word, turning away my face, to wipe off the tears with which it was bedewed. Having read it, he returned it again.