Captain Wentworth's letter to Miss Anne Elliott:
I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means
as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half
hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone
for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own,
than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say
that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.
I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and
resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought
me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. - Have you not seen
this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? - I had not waited
even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you
must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant
hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I
can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others.
- Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do
believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe
it to be most fervent, most undeviating in
F.W.
I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow
your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide
whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.