I cannot obtain a passport under my own name. If the sister of your hapless friend sufficiently interests you, my retreat may be learned at Paris of my relation, Monsieur Maltigues: but should you generously wish to aid me, lose not a moment; for it is said that war will shortly be declared between our two countries.' Imagine the effect this took on me! my friend murdered, his sister in despair, their fortune, she said, in my hands, though I had not received the least tidings of it; add to these circumstances, Madame d'Arbigny's danger, and belief that I could preserve her; it was impossible to hesitate. I sent a messenger to my father with her letter, and my promise to return in a fortnight; then set forth instantly. By the most distressing chance the man fell ill on the way, and my second letter, from Dover, reached my father before the first. Thus he knew of my flight, ere informed of its motives; and ere the explanation came, had taken an alarm which could not be dissipated. I arrived at Paris in three days, and found that Madame d'Arbigny had retired to a provincial town sixty leagues off; thither I followed her. We were both much agitated at meeting. She appeared more lovely in her distress than I had ever thought her--less artificial, less restrained. We wept together for her noble brother, and distracted country. I anxiously inquired as to her fortune. She told me that she had no news of it; but in a few days I learned that the banker to whom Count Raimond confided it, had returned it to him; and, what was more singular, a merchant of the town in which we were, who told me this by chance, assured me that Madame d'Arbigny never needed to have felt a moment's doubt of its safety. I could not understand this; went to ask her what it meant; and found M. Maltigues, who, with the readiest coolness, informed me that he had just brought from Paris intelligence of the banker's return, as, not having heard of him for a month, they had thought he was gone to England.[1] She confirmed her kinsman's statements, and I believed them; but, since, have recollected her pretexts for not showing me the note from Raimond, mentioned in her letter, and am now convinced that the whole was but a stratagem to secure me. It is certain that, as she was rich, no interested motives blended with her scheme; but her great fault lay in using address where love alone was required, and dissimulating when candor would better have served the cause of her sentimental enterprise: she loved me as much as those can love, who preconcert not only their actions but their feelings, and conduct an affair of the heart with the policy of a state intrigue. I formerly declared that I would never marry without my father's approval; yet I could not forbear betraying the transports her beauty and sadness excited. Her plan being to make me captive at any price, she let me perceive that she was not thoroughly resolved on repulsing my wishes. As I now retrace what passed between us, I am