ons. I am so convinced of
this, that by this rule I would judge of any man's heart in the world,
better than by a thousand declarations and protestations. I do assure
you, rakish as Jackey is, and freely as I doubt not that Lord Davers
has formerly lived (for he has been a man of pleasure), they gave me,
by their behaviour on these tender occasions, reason to think they had
more virtue than not to be very apprehensive for your safety; and my
lord often exclaimed, that he could not have thought his brother such
a libertine, neither.

Besides, child, were not these things written in confidence had not
recited all you could recite, would there not have been room for any
one, who saw what you wrote, to imagine they had been still worse? And
how could the terror be supposed to have had such effects upon you, as
to endanger your life, without imagining you had undergone the worst a
vile man _could_ offer, unless you had told us what that was which he
_did_ offer, and so put a bound, as it were, to one's fears of what
you suffered, which otherwise must have been injurious to your purity,
though you could not help it?

Moreover, Pamela, it was but doing justice to the libertine himself
to tell your mother the whole truth, that she might know he was not so
very abandoned, but he could stop short of the execution of his wicked
purposes, which he apprehended, if pursued, would destroy the life,
that, of all lives, he would choose to preserve; and you owed also
thus much to your parents' peace of mind, that, after all their
distracting fears for you, they might see they had reason to rejoice
in an uncontaminated daughter. And one cannot but reflect, now he has
made you his wife, that it must be satisfaction to the wicked man, as
well as to yourself, that he was not more guilty than he _was_, nor
took more liberties than he _did_.

For my own part, I must say, that I could not have accounted for your
fits, by any descriptions short of those you give; and had you been
less particular in the circumstances, I should have judged he had been
still _worse_, and your person, though not your mind, less pure, than
his pride would expect from the woman he should marry; for this is
the case of all rakes, that though they indulge in all manner of
libertinism themselves, there is no class of men who exact greater
delicacy from the persons they marry, though they care not how bad
they make the wives, the sisters, and daughters of others.

I