“When I came to my fortune, intoxicated with sudden power, I forgot this fair blossom, I revelled in licentiousness and vice, and left it exposed and forlorn. Riot succeeded riot, till a fever, incurred by my own intemperance, first gave me time to think. Then was she revenged, for then first remorse was my portion: her image was brought back to my mind with frantic fondness, and bitterest contrition. The moment I recovered, I returned to England; I flew to claim her,--but she was lost! no one knew whither she was gone; the wretch I had trusted pretended to know least of all; yet, after a furious search, I traced her to a cottage, where he had concealed her himself! “When she saw me, she screamed and would have flown; I stopt her, and told her I came faithfully and honourably to make her my wife:--her own faith and honour, though sullied, were not extinguished, for she instantly acknowledged the fatal tale of her undoing! “Did I recompense this ingenuousness? this unexampled, this beautiful sacrifice to intuitive integrity? Yes! with my curses!--I loaded her with execrations, I reviled her in language the most opprobrious, I insulted her even for her confession! I invoked all evil upon her from the bottom of my heart--She knelt at my feet, she implored my forgiveness and compassion, she wept with the bitterness of despair,--and yet I spurned her from me!--Spurned?--let me not hide my shame! I barbarously struck her!--nor single was the blow!--it was doubled, it was reiterated!--Oh wretch, unyielding and unpitying! where shall hereafter be clemency for thee!--So fair a form! so young a culprit! so infamously seduced! so humbly penitent! “In this miserable condition, helpless and deplorable, mangled by these savage hands, and reviled by this inhuman tongue, I left her, in search of the villain who had destroyed her: but, cowardly as treacherous, he had absconded. Repenting my fury, I hastened to her again; the fierceness of my cruelty shamed me when I grew calmer, the softness of her sorrow melted me upon recollection: I returned, therefore, to soothe her,--but again she was gone! terrified with expectation of insult, she hid herself from all my enquiries. I wandered in search of her two long years to no purpose, regardless of my affairs, and of all things but that pursuit. At length, I thought I saw her--in London, alone, and walking in the streets at midnight,--I fearfully followed her,--and followed her into an house of infamy! “The wretches by whom she was surrounded were noisy and drinking, they heeded me little,--but she saw and knew me at once! She did not speak, nor did I,--but in two moments she fainted and fell. “Yet did I not help her; the people took their own measures to recover her, and when she was again able to stand, would have removed her to another apartment.