Mr. Rutledge regarded my request. Whether he suspected my retreat or not, I could not tell, but in the confusion and excitement that ensued upon the discovery of my flight, I have reason to believe he influenced the direction of the search that was instituted, and did not thwart the general idea, that I had fled to the city to rejoin Victor, who, it was soon learned, had not sailed when he had appointed. All was mystery and confusion, but this idea saved me from pursuit here, and gave something for suspicion to fasten and feed upon, and out of which to build up an effigy, to receive the maledictions and reproaches of the world. All this was less than indifferent to me; while they were searching for me with venom and wrath, and bemoaning my iniquities with dainty horror, and execrating my hypocrisy, and settling my fate, and clearing themselves forever of any further part or lot in me, I was much nearer the other world than this; so near indeed, that when after long weeks of hovering between this and the unseen, I gradually awoke to the knowledge that I was still to stay in life, I had so far lost my interest in it, that it gave me hardly a moment's concern to find that Mrs. Churchill had discovered my place of retreat, and had written in almost insulting language to Mr. Shenstone, forbidding my return to her, and casting me off forever. Mr. Shenstone seemed sadly distressed to communicate this to me; the languid smile with which I received it, reassured him. "She could not have done me a greater favor, sir; she has saved me the trouble of saying that I would not return to her, and she knew it very well. She is glad to be rid of me, and hurried to spare her dignity the rebuff that she knew it would receive as soon as I was able to put pen to paper." But there was a harder task to perform; my promise to Mr. Rutledge was yet unfulfilled. I understood from Mr. Shenstone that he had sailed for Havre a fortnight after I had left Rutledge, and I dared no longer delay my promised communication to him. A very brief and simple letter told him all that was necessary. In the course of the winter there came an answer to it, short but kind, with nothing wanting in consideration and interest, characteristic and manly, yet with a shade of formality and restraint, differing from all phases of our former intercourse; ever so slight a shade, it is true, but it made me put this his last letter away, with the same feeling that I think I should have had, if I had just turned away from my last look at him in his coffin. He was dead to _me_, at least.