I can with the utmost sincerity assure my Cecilia, that I now behold Mr Faulkland with as much indifference as I do any other man of my acquaintance. Time, joined to my own efforts, must, without any other help, have intirely subdued an inclination, which was always restrained by prudential motives, and rendered subservient to my duty; but I have, besides this, now acquired a shield that must render me invulnerable; I mean the perfect and tender affection I bear my husband: this has completely secured me against the most distant apprehensions of being alarmed from any other quarter; yet notwithstanding all this, I can't say that I am quite satisfied at this renewal of my acquaintance with Mr Faulkland. I hope, and indeed it is reasonable to suppose, that I have now as little interest in _his_ heart as he has in mine: it is but natural to believe that a gay young man like him, should not be so weak as to nourish a hopeless passion for more than two years, especially as he has never once seen the object of it in all that time; and must, without doubt, have had his attention engaged to others in all likelihood much preferable to her; so that I think I have reason to be as easy on his account as on my own. But still I am disquieted in my mind; I have a delicacy that takes alarm at the veriest trifles, and has been a source of pain to me my whole lifetime: it makes me unhappy to think that I am now under an almost unavoidable necessity of sometimes seeing and conversing with a man, who once had such convincing proofs, that he was not indifferent to me.
Mr Arnold's ignorance of our former connections makes it still worse. At the time I was so averse to his knowing any thing of this affair, I flattered myself I should never see Mr Faulkland more, or at least never be obliged to have any intercourse with him; but I now lament that I did not take my mother's advice, and disclose the whole affair at first. Oh! my Cecilia, when the smallest deviations from candor (which we suppose discretion), are thus punished with remorse, what must they feel whose whole life is one continued act of dissimulation? If Mr Arnold had been acquainted with my former engagements, my heart would be more at ease, and I should then converse with this man with all the disengaged freedom of a common friend. I wish Mr Arnold's curiosity would excite him to ask me some questions relative to my acquaintance with Mr Faulkland, that I might have an opportunity of telling him the secret. But the enquiry he made at lady V----'s was in a careless manner; he was satisfied with my reply, and spoke not of him since.