Thus was the noble faculty of reason disgracefully sacrificed on the polluted altar of sensuality. In a few hours, however, reflection returned, and conscience began to resume her empire, and remorse to sting his soul. He would have made the only reparation in his power by a speedy retreat; for he could not, as he declared, again look on the friend whom he had so injured, without the danger of annihilation. His own words are forcibly expressive: “The sense of this crime,” he says, “was twisted round my heart like a serpent of hell, and the recollection still freezes my soul. The enormity of my guilt was magnified by the unexampled hospitality and friendship I experienced from them both. Their confidence was unlimited, and I repaid it with base ingratitude. For weeks afterwards an idea haunted me, that the first time the husband’s eye met mine, the wrath of God would consume me from the face of the earth. I would have fled from the fatal spot, as from a devouring pestilence; but I foolishly allowed myself to be overruled by W., who has been the murderer of every soul that had the misfortune to fall in his way. This is not the language of invective, nor do I think it uncharitable, for his crimes are of so deep a dye as to put all power of exaggeration at defiance. Most men endeavour to frame some excuse for their errors, but even this negative virtue W. never arrived at: he had no other motive for his villainy, than the malignant pleasure of seeing misery widely diffused.” Upwards of a month had elapsed before this execrable old monster W. could give up a pursuit almost as infamous, though not quite so destructive in its effects, as that which scaled the debasement of his pupil, and the amiable family in which they had both been entertained for nearly three months. Several circumstances had occurred to render any longer stay in Paris exceedingly irksome, and he prudently suggested to his pupil the propriety of visiting Bourdeaux, whither they retired somewhat abruptly. On their arrival in that city, they found that letters of introduction, which they expected from England, had not arrived: this they thought would occasion no great inconvenience, as W. was quite at home here, having formerly spent some years amongst the learned and the dissolute, to whom he now repaired: but, to his disappointment, some of them were dead, and many of the rest dispersed in various parts of the world. The travellers were therefore obliged to seek that accommodation at a hotel, which ill-requited hospitality had so readily afforded them in Paris.