At first I thought it was a joke, but I soon found out my mistake; the veil fell from my eyes and I saw myself in my true colours, the degraded dupe of a vile prostitute.

Love easily becomes fury.  I began to handle her roughly, but she resisted and did not speak.  I tore her night-gown to rags, but I could not tear it entirely off her.  My rage grew terrible, my hands became talons, and I treated her with the utmost cruelty; but all for nothing.  At last, with my hand on her throat, I felt tempted to strangle her; and then I knew it was time for me to go.

It was a dreadful night.  I spoke to this monster of a woman in every manner and tone-with gentleness, with argument, rage, remonstrance, prayers, tears, and abuse, but she resisted me for three hours without abandoning her painful position, in spite of the torments I made her endure.

At three o’clock in the morning, feeling my mind and body in a state of exhaustion, I got up and dressed myself by my sense of touch.  I opened the parlour door, and finding the street door locked I shook it till a servant came and let me out.  I went home and got into bed, but excited nature refused me the sleep I needed so.  I took a cup of chocolate, but it would not stay on my stomach, and soon after a shivering fit warned me that I was feverish.  I continued to be ill till the next day, and then the fever left me in a state of complete exhaustion.

As I was obliged to keep to my bed for a few days, I knew that I should soon get my health again; but my chief consolation was that at last I was cured.  My shame had made me hate myself.

When I felt the fever coming on I told my man not to let anybody come to see me, and to place all my letters in my desk; for I wanted to be perfectly well before I troubled myself with anything.

On the fourth day I was better, and I told Jarbe to give me my letters.  I found one from Pauline, dated from Madrid, in which she informed me that Clairmont had saved her life while they were fording a river, and she had determined to keep him till she got to Lisbon, and would then send him back by sea.  I congratulated myself at the time on her resolve; but it was a fatal one for Clairmont, and indirectly for me also.  Four months after, I heard that the ship in which he had sailed had been wrecked, and as I never heard from him again I could only conclude that my faithful servant had perished amidst the waves.

Amongst my London letters I found two from the infamous mother of the infamous Charpillon, and one from the girl herself.  The first of the mother’s letters, written before I was ill, told me that her daughter was ill in bed, covered with bruises from the blows I had given her, so that she would be obliged to institute legal proceedings against me.  In the second letter she said she had heard I too was ill, and that she was sorry to hear it, her daughter having informed her that I had some reason for my