rm coquetry between my wife and this young man.
Sophia was virtuous, but proud of her virtue; and, irritated by my
jealousy, she was so imprudent as to press and encourage an intimacy
which she saw I disapproved and regarded with suspicion. Between Brown
and me there existed a sort of internal dislike. He made an effort or two
to overcome my prejudice; but, prepossessed as I was, I placed them to a
wrong motive. Feeling himself repulsed, and with scorn, he desisted; and
as he was without family and friends, he was naturally more watchful of
the deportment of one who had both.

'It is odd with what torture I write this letter. I feel inclined,
nevertheless, to protract the operation, just as if my doing so could put
off the catastrophe which has so long embittered my life. But--it must be
told, and it shall be told briefly.

'My wife, though no longer young, was still eminently handsome, and--let
me say thus far in my own justification-she was fond of being thought
so--I am repeating what I said before. In a word, of her virtue I never
entertained a doubt; but, pushed by the artful suggestions of Archer, I
thought she cared little for my peace of mind, and that the young fellow
Brown paid his attentions in my despite, and in defiance of me. He
perhaps considered me, on his part, as an oppressive aristocratic man,
who made my rank in society and in the army the means of galling those
whom circumstances placed beneath me. And if he discovered my silly
jealousy, he probably considered the fretting me in that sore point of my
character as one means of avenging the petty indignities to which I had
it in my power to subject him. Yet an acute friend of mine gave a more
harmless, or at least a less offensive, construction to his attentions,
which he conceived to be meant for my daughter Julia, though immediately
addressed to propitiate the influence of her mother. This could have been
no very flattering or pleasing enterprise on the part of an obscure and
nameless young man; but I should not have been offended at this folly as
I was at the higher degree of presumption I suspected. Offended, however,
I was, and in a mortal degree.

'A very slight spark will kindle a flame where everything lies open to
catch it. I have absolutely forgot the proximate cause of quarrel, but it
was some trifle which occurred at the card-table which occasioned high
words and a challenge. We met in the morning beyond the walls and
esplanade of the fo