Thou knowest I am thy wife!-clear, then, to the world the reputation thou hast sullied, and receive, as thy lawful successor, the child who will present thee this, my dying request!
The worthiest, the most benevolent, the best of men, to whose consoling kindness I owe the little tranquillity I have been able to preserve, has plighted me his faith, that, upon no other conditions, he will part with his helpless charge.
Should'st thou, in the features of this deserted innocent, trace the resemblance of the wretched Caroline,-should its face bear the marks of its birth, and revive in thy memory the image of its mother, wilt thou not, Belmont, wilt thou not therefore renounce it?-Oh, babe of my fondest affection! for whom already I experience all the tenderness of maternal pity! look not like thy unfortunate mother,-lest the parent, whom the hand of death may spare, shall be snatched from thee by the more cruel means of unnatural antipathy!
I can write no more. The small share of serenity I have painfully acquired, will not bear the shock of the dreadful ideas that crowd upon me.
Adieu,-for ever!Yet, Oh!-shall I not, in this last farewell, which thou wilt not read till every stormy passion is extinct, and the kind grave has embosomed all my sorrows,-shall I not offer to the man, once so dear to me, a ray of consolation to those afflictions he has in reserve? Suffer me, then, to tell thee, that my pity far exceeds my indignation,-that I will pray for thee in my last moments, and that the recollection of the love I once bore thee, shall swallow up every other!
Once more, adieu! CAROLINE BELMONT.