Fred Lamb left me in madness and fury; but I knew him selfish, and that he could dine on every imagined luxury, and drink his champagne, without a thought or care whether I had bread and cheese to satisfy hunger. Then who, with love, first love! beating in their hearts, could think of Frederick Lamb? I immediately changed my lodgings for a furnished house at the west end of the town, better calculated to receive my new lover, whose passion knew no bounds. He often told me how much more beautiful I was than he had ever expected to find me. "I cannot," he wrote to me, during a short absence from town, "I cannot, for circumstances prevent my being entirely yours"--I fancied he alluded to his old flame, Lady W----, with whom, the world said he had been intriguing nineteen years, "but nothing can, nor shall, prevent my being, for ever, your friend, &c. &c. &c." "If," thought I, "this man is not to be entirely mine, perhaps I shall not be entirely his." I could have been--but this nasty Lady W---- destroys half my illusion. He used to sit with her, in her box at the Opera, and wear a chain which I believed to be hers. He often came to me from the Opera, with just such a rose in his bosom as I had seen in hers. All this was a dead bore. One night I plucked the rose from his breast, another time I hid the chain, and all this to him seemed the effect of pure accident: for who, with pride, and youth, and beauty, would admit they were jealous? One night, I am sure he will recollect that night, when he thought me mad, one night I say, I could not endure the idea of Lady W----. That night we were at Argyle House, and he really seemed most passionately fond of me. The idea suddenly crossed my mind that all the tenderness and passion he seemed to feel for me was shared between myself and Lady W----. I could not bear it. "I shall go home," I said, suddenly. "Going home!" said the duke. "Why my dear little Harriette, you are walking in your sleep"; and he threw on his dressing-gown, and took hold of my hand. "I am not asleep," said I; "but I will not stay here; I cannot. I would rather die:" and I burst into tears. "My dear, dear Harriette," continued Argyle, in great alarm, "for God's sake, tell me what on earth I have done to offend you?" "Nothing--nothing," said I, drying my tears. "I have but one favour to ask: let me alone, instead of persecuting me with all this show of tenderness." "Gracious God!" said Argyle, "how you torment me! If," he proceeded, after pausing, "if you have ceased to love me,--if--if you are disgusted----" I was silent. "Do speak! pray, pray!" said he. His agitation astonished me. It almost stopped his breathing. "This man," thought I, "is either very nervous or he loves me just as I want to be loved." I had my hand on the door, to leave him. He took hold of me, and threw me from it with some violence; locked it and snatched the key out; took me in his arms and pressed me with almost savage violence against his breast.