Surely, this is good evidence that, from an early date of their acquaintance, she knew he was a fickle worshiper of womankind and a libertine. Moreover, what a confession to be made by Mr. Kegan Paul’s bright example of feminine purity and delicacy,--the woman who is said by Mr. Kegan Paul to have come to Paris without having had any affair of the heart! She had learnt in September, 1793, that the way to her _senses_ was through her _heart_, and that she could ‘find food for love in the same object’ longer than her correspondent could. A great deal for a woman to learn between the end of December and the middle of the following September! It must, however, be admitted that Paris, at the end of the last century, was a school where a woman picked up such knowledge fast. Mr. Kegan Paul is sure that, from the commencement of her association with Imlay in Free Love, Mary Wollstonecraft considered herself as his _wife_ ‘in the eyes of God and man;’ and Mr. Kegan Paul, ‘using this word deliberately,’ styles her the _wife_ of Gilbert Imlay. Let us look into this matter. At the commencement of this virtuous association, Gilbert and Mary were not living under the same roof; but having separate places of abode, they met secretly by assignation for the enjoyment of their conjugal privileges. One of their places, perhaps their only place, of assignation, was a certain ‘barrier’ of the French capital, near which barrier the act occurred, that resulted in the birth of Mary Wollstonecraft’s illegitimate daughter in April, 1794. The pleasure of these meetings at the barrier was referred to by Mary, when, in the twenty-third of the famous series of letters, she wrote on 22nd September, 1794, from Paris to Imlay:--‘Bring me, then, back your barrier-face, or you shall have nothing to say to my barrier-girl.’ On the following day, she wrote in the same vein:-- ‘I desired you, in one of my other letters, to bring back to me your barrier-face--or that you should not be loved by my barrier-girl. I know that you will love her more and more, for she is a little affectionate, intelligent creature, with as much vivacity, I should think, as you could wish for.’ When writing thus to her already cold and remiss partner in Free Love, Mary pined to see once again the radiant face of the lover, whose ‘barrier-girl’ was with her at Paris,--a five-months’ infant, delighting in three things, ‘to ride in a coach, to look at a scarlet waistcoat, and hear loud music.’ Mary and Gilbert were still living apart and meeting one another by assignation, when she wrote to him on some unknown day of August, 1793:-- ‘You can scarcely imagine with what pleasure I anticipate the day, when we are to begin almost to live together; and you would smile to hear how many plans of employment I have in my head, now that I am confident my heart has found peace in your bosom.... I will be at the barrier a little after ten o’clock to-morrow.’