consult a physician,--I would not for the universe have my situation
known. You stare--you cannot enter into my feelings. Why, my dear, if I
lose admiration, what have I left? Would you have me live upon pity?
Consider what a dreadful thing it must be to me, who have no friends, no
family, to be confined to a sick room--a sick bed; 'tis what I must come
to at last, but not yet--not yet. I have fortitude; I should despise
myself if I had no species of merit: besides, it is still some occupation
to me to act my part in public; and bustle, noise, nonsense, if they do
not amuse or interest me, yet they stifle reflection. May you never know
what it is to feel remorse! The idea of that poor wretch, Lawless, whom I
actually murdered as much as if I had shot him, haunts me whenever I am
alone. It is now between eight and nine years since he died, and I have
lived ever since in a constant course of dissipation; but it won't
do--conscience, conscience will be heard! Since my health has been
weakened, I believe I have acquired more conscience. I really think that
my stupid lord, who has neither ideas nor sensations, except when he is
intoxicated, is a hundred times happier than I am. But I will spare you,
Belinda; I promised that you should not have a _scene_, and I will keep my
word. It is, however, a great relief to open my mind to one who has some
feeling: Harriot Freke has none; I am convinced that she has no more
feeling than this table. I have not yet told you how she has used me. You
know that it was she who led or rather dragged me into that scrape with
Lawless; for that I never reproached her. You know it was she who
frightened me into fighting that duel with Mrs. Luttridge; for this I
never reproached her. She has cost me my peace of mind, my health, my
life; she knows it, and she forsakes, betrays, insults, and leaves me to
die. I cannot command my temper sufficiently to be coherent when I speak
of her; I cannot express in words what I feel. How could that most
treacherous of beings, for ten years, make me believe that she was my
friend? Whilst I thought she really loved me, I pardoned her all her