But the repugnance towards him, which these reflections inspired, was not my only reasons for disliking the society of Guiderius. He had formerly been Ethelbert’s companion in his profligate enjoyments; he was now his confessor and the only confidant of his secret sins, and in this quality he assumed a much greater share of authority in the Castle, than was left to its weak master and his powerless wife. At first I occasionally forced myself to throw aside that timidity, which I had acquired from so many years of suffering, and endeavoured to dispossess the hypocrite of my husband’s favour and of such immoderate influence: but the attempt was always attended with so little success, that I was compelled to abandon it, and submit patiently to bear the yoke, which the omnipotent Abbot imposed on all the Castle’s inmates. Guiderius was young; he might have been called handsome, had not every feature betrayed the traces of riot and licentiousness. When I complained of his usurped authority, he frequently assured me, that I was not _his_ captive as I stated, but much rather was he _mine_: but these declarations, which made him still more hateful to me, were received and answered with such contempt and bitterness, that he at length desisted from making them. Instead of these insulting liberties, he seemed to adopt a particularly delicate and humble manner in all things, in which _I_ was concerned, and about which I appeared interested. So that as I now began to feel easy respecting his professions of too warm an attachment, and in this moment of most urgent necessity, when our terrible foe was at our gates, and as every one had recourse to me for that advice, which I, poor trembling woman, would so willingly have asked of others; in such a situation, helpless and bewildered as I was, I did nor think it wise to reject without an hearing the proposition, which the Abbot of Curwald requested leave to lay before me, and whose adoption (he said) would be greatly for my advantage. It proved to be of a nature so innocent, that ill as I thought of the person who proposed it, I could find no reasonable grounds for its rejection.