my former friends. He was in great pecuniary embarrassment--much more
deeply so than I then imagined; for I believed the embarrassment to be
only temporary. However, my purse was then, as before, at his disposal,
and he did not scruple to avail himself very largely of my offers. He
came frequently to our house; and poor Gertrude, who thought I had, for
her sake, made a real sacrifice in renouncing my acquaintance,
endeavoured to conquer her usual diffidence, and that more painful
feeling than diffidence, natural to her station, and even to affect a
pleasure in the society of my friend, which she was very far from
feeling.

"I was detained at--for several weeks by Gertrude's confinement. The
child--happy being!--died a week after its birth. Gertrude was still in
bed, and unable to leave it, when I received a letter from Ellen, to say,
that my mother was then staying at Toulouse, and dangerously ill; if I
wished once more to see her, Ellen besought me to lose no time in setting
off for the continent. You may imagine my situation, or rather you
cannot, for you cannot conceive the smallest particle of that intense
love I bore to Gertrude. To you--to any other man, it might seem no
extraordinary hardship to leave her even for an uncertain period--to me
it was like tearing away the very life from my heart.

"I procured her a sort of half companion, and half nurse; I provided for
her every thing that the most anxious and fearful love could suggest; and
with a mind full of forebodings too darkly to be realized hereafter, I
hastened to the nearest seaport, and set sail for France.

"When I arrived at Toulouse my mother was much better, but still in a
very uncertain and dangerous state of health. I stayed with her for more
than a month, during which time every post brought me a line from