e wrote, "therefore you know that the
object of my secret passion is worthy of any sacrifice; for you know
your friend too well to believe him capable of any blind infatuation,
and this must suffice for the present. No one must suspect what we are
to each other; no one here or round the neighborhood must have the
slightest clew to our plans. An awful personage will soon make his
appearance among us. His violent temper, his inveterate obstinacy
(according to all that one hears, of him), are well calculated to
confirm in _her_ a well-founded aversion. But family arrangements and
legal contracts exist, the fulfillment of which the opposing party are
bent on enforcing. The struggle will be hard, perhaps unsuccessful;
notwithstanding, I will strain every nerve. Should I fall, you must
console yourself, my dear Edward, with the thought, that it will be no
misfortune to your friend to be deprived of an existence rendered
miserable by the failure of his dearest hopes, and separation from his
dearest friend. Then may all the happiness which heaven has denied me be
vouchsafed to you and her, so that my spirit may look down contentedly
from the realms of light, and bless and protect you both."

Such was the usual tenor of the letters which Edward received during
that period. His heart was full of anxiety--he read danger and distress
in the mysterious communications of Ferdinand; and every argument that
affection and good sense could suggest aid he make use of, in his
replies, to turn his friend from this path of peril which threatened to
end in a deep abyss. He tried persuasion, and urged him to desist for
the sake of their long-tried affection. But when did passion ever listen
to the expostulations of friendship?

Ferdinand only saw one aim in life--the possession of the beloved one.
All else faded from before his eyes, and even his correspondence
slackened; for his time, was much taken up in secret excursions,
arrangements of all kinds, and communications with all manner of
persons; in fact every action of his present life tended to the
furtherance of his plan.

All of a sudden his letters ceased. Many posts passed without a sign of
life. Edward was a prey to the greatest anxiety; he thought his friend
had staked and lost. He imagined an elopement, a clandestine marriage, a
duel with a rival, and all these casualties were the more painful to
conjecture, since his entire ignorance of the real state of things gave
his fancy ful