“She stated, in effect, that Conway, from the first moment he had beheld Isabel, had entertained a passion for her, which neither the favor he had received from me, nor her own purity, nor the impassable barriers against its gratification, had enabled him to conquer. Indeed it is questionable if he ever cared to do so. Wilful, headstrong, remorseless, and careless of every thing but the gratification of his desires, he was perhaps one of the most hardened villains that ever cursed mankind; a villain the more dangerous, because his fascinating manners enabled him to wear the guise of virtue, and perpetrate his infamous designs without suspicion. But in laying himself out to seduce Isabel, he capped the climax of his villainy. For a long time, however, he only attempted to gain the good will of Isabel, and to seduce by large presents, her waiting woman to his side. As yet he had not ventured to breathe a word of his unholy passion to its object. But my departure opened new hopes. Flattered and deceived by the attentions paid him by Isabel,—attentions which I now learned with the wildest joy, were only paid to him because he was my friend,—he now resolved to make a bold throw in his perilous game. He knew my writing well. In a word, he forged a letter purporting to be from me, to Isabel, requesting her to join me in P——, under his escort; and by these means he placed my unhappy wife wholly in his power. As she would not travel without her waiting woman, he was forced to make her his confidant, and purchase her secrecy by large sums of money. But why linger on this awful history? Demons themselves would shudder at its relation. I cannot—yes! I must tell it. Repulsed by Isabel with scorn, when, on the second day, he ventured to declare his passion, he told her, with the mockery of a fiend, as he pointed to the lonely inn where they then were, that resistance was useless. Yes!—here, hold down your ear, closer, let me whisper it only; he used force; God of heaven, there was none to save her from the monster’s fangs! “There—there—it is over: unhand me I say. But forgive me: I am well nigh crazed: I know not what I do. Some of that drink. Bless you for fanning my poor, aching brow; I believe sometimes that I am becoming a child again. Those tears have relieved me. I am so weak now that they come involuntarily into my eyes, but time was when it seemed as if they had been dried up forever at their fountain, and when, in my unutterable agony, I would have given worlds to weep. “I forgot to tell you that I felled that hag to the ground like an ox, when she told me that fearful tale. I could not help it. A woman! and stand by merciless! Oh! my God it was too much.