nurse, who took care of me as a child, had got a place in London as
housekeeper in a large shop in the Strand. She was always very fond of
me, and to her instantly I determined to go. I came down, wrote a
brief note to James, stating that after his base and lying sneer he
could not expect to find me in the morning still with him, and telling
him I had left him for ever. I put on my cloak, took some money which
was my own out of my cashbox, and at half-past twelve heard the mail-
coach approaching. I opened the front door softly--it shut with an
oiled spring bolt; I went out, stopped the coach, and was presently
rolling over the road to the great city.

"Oh, that night! I was the sole passenger inside, and for some hours I
remained stunned, hardly knowing what had become of me. Soon the
morning began to break, with such calm and such slow-changing splendour
that it drew me out of myself to look at it, and it seemed to me a
prophecy of the future. No words can tell the bound of my heart at
emancipation. I did not know what was before me, but I knew from what
I had escaped; I did not believe I should be pursued, and no sailor
returning from shipwreck and years of absence ever entered the port
where wife and children were with more rapture than I felt journeying
through the rain into which the clouds of the sunrise dissolved, as we
rode over the dim flats of Huntingdonshire southwards.

"There is no need for me to weary you any longer, nor to tell you what
happened after I got to London, or how I came here. I had a little
property of my own and no child. To avoid questions I resumed my
maiden name. But one thing you must know, because it will directly
tend to enforce what I am going to beseech of you. Years afterwards, I
might have married a man who was devoted to me. But I told him I was
married already, and not a word of love must he speak to me. He went