mind with frantic fondness, and bitterest contrition. The moment I
recovered, I returned to England; I flew to claim her,--but she was
lost! no one knew whither she was gone; the wretch I had trusted
pretended to know least of all; yet, after a furious search, I traced
her to a cottage, where he had concealed her himself!

"When she saw me, she screamed and would have flown; I stopt her, and
told her I came faithfully and honourably to make her my wife:--her own
faith and honour, though sullied, were not extinguished, for she
instantly acknowledged the fatal tale of her undoing!

"Did I recompense this ingenuousness? this unexampled, this beautiful
sacrifice to intuitive integrity? Yes! with my curses!--I loaded her
with execrations, I reviled her in language the most opprobrious, I
insulted her even for her confession! I invoked all evil upon her from
the bottom of my heart--She knelt at my feet, she implored my
forgiveness and compassion, she wept with the bitterness of despair,--
and yet I spurned her from me!--Spurned?--let me not hide my shame! I
barbarously struck her!--nor single was the blow!--it was doubled, it
was reiterated!--Oh wretch, unyielding and unpitying! where shall
hereafter be clemency for thee!--So fair a form! so young a culprit! so
infamously seduced! so humbly penitent!

"In this miserable condition, helpless and deplorable, mangled by these
savage hands, and reviled by this inhuman tongue, I left her, in search
of the villain who had destroyed her: but, cowardly as treacherous, he
had absconded. Repenting my fury, I hastened to her again; the
fierceness of my cruelty shamed me when I grew calmer, the softness of
her sorrow melted me upon recollection: I returned, therefore, to
soothe her,--but again she was gone! terrified with expectation of