abuse of the power of the crown by the master I had served with so
much fidelity and affection. I have never since that period held
direct or indirect communication with a court where the basest
treachery had been my only reward.

"For many months the paroxysms of Lady Greville's distemper were so
violent as to require the strictest confinement; and the medical man
who attended her assured me that when this state of irritation should
subside, she would either be restored entirely to the full exercise
of her mental faculties, or be plunged into a state of apathy, of
tranquil but confirmed dejection, from which, although it might not
affect her bodily health, she would never recover. How anxiously did
I watch for this crisis of her disorder! and yet at times I scarcely
wished her to awake to a keener sense of her afflictions; for being
incapable of recognising my person in my frequent visits to her
chamber, I have heard her address me in her wanderings for pardon
and pity. 'Forgive me, Greville, forgive me,' she would say.
'Remember how forlorn a wretch I shall become, when thou too, like
the rest, shalt abandon and persecute me. Am I not thy wedded wife,
and as faithful as I am miserable! am I not the mother of thy child?
and yet I know not;--for I seek my poor infant, and they will not,
will not, give it to me--tell me,' she whispered with a ghastly smile,
'have they buried it in the raging sea with him whom I must not
name?'

"The decisive moment arrived; and Lady Greville's insanity was, in
the opinion of her physicians and attendants, confirmed for life.
She relapsed into that state of composed but decided aberration of
mind, in which she still remains. I soon observed that my presence
alone appeared to retain the power of irritating her feelings; and