"Ah!" said I, my heart bursting with the most poignant grief, "what do you dare to inform me of?
Is this the reward of an attachment like mine?
Have you so many times preserved my life, for the sole purpose of taking from me all that could render it desirable?
Your infidelity will bring me to the grave, but you will regret my loss!" She answered with a tranquillity sufficient to distract me, that I talked like a child; that people did not die from such slight causes; that our friendship need be no less sincere, nor we any less intimate, for that her tender attachment to me could neither diminish nor end but with herself; in a word she gave me to understand that my happiness need not suffer any decrease from the good fortune of this new favorite.
Never did the purity, truth and force of my attachment to her appear more evident; never did I feel the sincerity and honesty of my soul more forcibly, than at that moment.

I threw myself at her feet, embracing her knees with torrents of tears.

"No, madam," replied I, with the most violent agitation, "I love you too much to disgrace you thus far, and too truly to share you; the regret that accompanied the first acquisition of your favors has continued to increase with my affection.

I cannot preserve them by so violent an augmentation of it.

You shall ever have my adoration: be worthy of it; to me that is more necessary than all you can bestow.