uncertainties and anguish she had endured, to trust to the suggestions
of hope.

The gloomy forebodings of her mind, were but too faithfully verified.
Mr. Imlay had already formed another connexion; as it is said, with a
young actress from a strolling company of players. His attentions
therefore to Mary were formal and constrained, and she probably had but
little of his society. This alteration could not escape her penetrating
glance. He ascribed it to pressure of business, and some pecuniary
embarrassments which, at that time, occurred to him; it was of little
consequence to Mary what was the cause. She saw, but too well, though
she strove not to see, that his affections were lost to her for ever.

It is impossible to imagine a period of greater pain and mortification
than Mary passed, for about seven weeks, from the sixteenth of April to
the sixth of June, in a furnished house that Mr. Imlay had provided for
her. She had come over to England, a country for which she, at this
time, expressed "a repugnance, that almost amounted to horror," in
search of happiness. She feared that that happiness had altogether
escaped her; but she was encouraged by the eagerness and impatience
which Mr. Imlay at length seemed to manifest for her arrival. When she
saw him, all her fears were confirmed. What a picture was she capable of
forming to herself, of the overflowing kindness of a meeting, after an
interval of so much anguish and apprehension! A thousand images of this
sort were present to her burning imagination. It is in vain, on such
occasions, for reserve and reproach to endeavour to curb in the emotions
of an affectionate heart. But the hopes she nourished were speedily
blasted. Her reception by Mr. Imlay, was cold and embarrassed.
Discussions ("explanations" they were called) followed; cruel
explanations, that only added to the anguish of a heart already