A Shrewd But Not an Unusual Scheme

This is not the time, Marquis, to hide from you the true sentiments of the Countess in your regard. However much I have been able to keep her secret without betraying her friendship, and I have always done so, if I conceal from you what I am going to communicate, you may one day justly reproach me.

Whatever infidelities you may have been guilty of, whatever care I have been able to take to persuade her that you have been entirely forgotten, she has never ceased to love you tenderly. Although she has sought to punish you by an assumed indifference, she has never thought of depriving herself of the pleasure of seeing you, and it has been through the complaisance of the Countess that I have sometimes worried you; it was to goad you into visiting me more frequently. But all these schemes have not been able to satisfy a heart so deeply wounded, and she is on the point of executing a design I have all along been opposed to. You will learn all about it by reading the letter she wrote me yesterday, and which I inclose in this.