and in this painful exigence, she could only trust to her own
discretion and purity of intention to shield her from the advances
from which she shrunk with horror. Irritated by the opposition he
encountered, and astonished by that dignity of virtue, which, 'severe
in youthful beauty,' had power to awe even a monarch in the
consciousness of guilt, the king by the most ungenerous private
scrutiny of her correspondence, made himself acquainted with her
attachment to Lord Hugh; and while she was eagerly looking for the
arrival of the ship which contained her only protector, the authority
of His Majesty prolonged its station in a distant and unhealthy
climate, where her letters did not reach him, and whence his aid
could avail her nothing.

"In this dilemma, when the death of Lady Wriothesly had deprived her
of even the semblance of a friend, I was first presented to Miss
Marchmont. The motive of the king in encouraging my attachment I can
hardly guess, unless the thought to fix her at court by her marriage,
where some future change of sentiment might throw her into his power;
or possibly he hoped to make my addresses the means of separating her
from the real object of her attachment, without contemplating a
farther result, and thus the same wanton selfishness which rendered
him regardless of every tie of moral feeling towards Theresa, led him
to prepare a life of misery and dishonour for his early friend and
faithful adherent.

"Agitated by a daily and hourly exposure to the importunities of
Charles; insulted by the suspicions which the insinuations of
Buckingham had excited in the minds of her companions; friendless--
Helpless--hopeless--dreading that she might be betrayed by her
ignorance of the world into some unforeseen evil, and knowing that