I then insisted upon going directly to Lady Betty’s lodgings.

Mrs. Leeson’s was now a crowded house, he said:  and as my earnestness could be owing to nothing but groundless apprehensions, [and Oh! what vows, what protestations of his honour, did he then make!] he hoped I would not add to their present concern.  Charlotte, indeed, was used to fits, he said, upon any great surprises, whether of joy or grief; and they would hold her for one week together, if not got off in a few hours.

You are an observer of eyes, my dear, said the villain; perhaps in secret insult:  Saw you not in Miss Montague’s, now-and-then at Hampstead, something wildish?  I was afraid for her then.  Silence and quiet only do her good:  your concern for her, and her love for you, will but augment the poor girl’s disorder, if you should go.

All impatient with grief and apprehension, I still declared myself resolved not to stay in that house till morning.  All I had in the world, my rings, my watch, my little money, for a coach; or, if one were not to be got, I would go on foot to Hampstead that night, though I walked it by myself.

A coach was hereupon sent for, or pretended to be sent for.  Any price, he said, he would give to oblige me, late as it was; and he would attend me with all his soul.  But no coach was to be got.

Let me cut short the rest.  I grew worse and worse in my head! now stupid, now raving, now senseless.  The vilest of vile women was brought to frighten me.  Never was there so horrible a creature as she appreared to me at this time.

I remember I pleaded for mercy.  I remember that I said I would be his—­ indeed I would be his—­to obtain his mercy.  But no mercy found I!  My strength, my intellects failed me—­And then such scenes followed—­O my dear, such dreadful scenes!—­fits upon fits, (faintly indeed and imperfectly remembered,) procuring me no compassion—­But death was withheld from me.  That would have been too great a mercy!

***

Thus was I tricked and deluded back by blacker hearts of my own sex than I thought there were in the world; who appeared to me to be persons of honour; and, when in his power, thus barbarously was I treated by this villanous man!

I was so senseless, that I dare not aver, that the horrid creatures of the house were personally aiding and abetting:  but some visionary remembrances I have of female figures, flitting, as I may say, before my sight; the wretched woman’s particularly.  But as these confused ideas might be owing to the terror I had conceived of the worse than masculine violence she had been permitted to assume to me, for expressing my abhorrence of her house; and as what I suffered from his barbarity wants not that aggravation; I will say no more on a subject so shocking as this must ever be to my remembrance.