In the height of her morality, good woman! she offered to forgive the past, if I would marry Eliza. That could not be--and I was formally dismissed from her favour and her house. The night following this affair--I was to go the next morning-- was spent by me in deliberating on what my future conduct should be. The struggle was great--but it ended too soon. My affection for Marianne, my thorough conviction of her attachment to me--it was all insufficient to outweigh that dread of poverty, or get the better of those false ideas of the necessity of riches, which I was naturally inclined to feel, and expensive society had increased. I had reason to believe myself secure of my present wife, if I chose to address her, and I persuaded myself to think that nothing else in common prudence remained for me to do. A heavy scene however awaited me, before I could leave Devonshire;--I was engaged to dine with you on that very day; some apology was therefore necessary for my breaking this engagement. But whether I should write this apology, or deliver it in person, was a point of long debate. To see Marianne, I felt, would be dreadful, and I even doubted whether I could see her again, and keep to my resolution.
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