t summon Carwin to my bar,
and make him the attestor of my innocence, and the accuser of himself.

My brother saw and comprehended my distress. He was unacquainted,
however, with the full extent of it. He knew not by how many motives
I was incited to retrieve the good opinion of Pleyel. He endeavored
to console me. Some new event, he said, would occur to disentangle the
maze. He did not question the influence of my eloquence, if I thought
proper to exert it. Why not seek an interview with Pleyel, and exact
from him a minute relation, in which something may be met with serving
to destroy the probability of the whole?

I caught, with eagerness, at this hope; but my alacrity was damped by
new reflections. Should I, perfect in this respect, and unblemished as
I was, thrust myself, uncalled, into his presence, and make my felicity
depend upon his arbitrary verdict?

"If you chuse to seek an interview," continued Wieland, "you must make
haste, for Pleyel informed me of his intention to set out this evening
or to-morrow on a long journey."

No intelligence was less expected or less welcome than this. I had
thrown myself in a window seat; but now, starting on my feet, I
exclaimed, "Good heavens! what is it you say? a journey? whither? when?"

"I cannot say whither. It is a sudden resolution I believe. I did not
hear of it till this morning. He promises to write to me as soon as he
is settled."

I needed no further information as to the cause and issue of this
journey. The scheme of happiness to which he had devoted his thoughts
was blasted by the discovery of last night. My preference of another,
and my unworthiness to be any longer the object of his adoration, were
evinced by the same act and in the same moment. The thought of utter
desertion, a desertion originating in such a cause, was the prelude to
distraction. That Pleyel should abandon me forever, because I was blind
to his excellence, because I coveted pollution, and wedded infamy, when,
on the contrary, my heart was the shrine of all purity, and beat only
for his sake, was a destiny which, as long as my life was in my own
hands, I would by no means consent to endure.

I remembered that this evil was still preventable; that this fatal
journey it was still in my power to procrastinate, or, perhaps, to
occasion it to be laid aside. There were no impediments to a visit: I
only dreaded lest the interview should be too long delayed. My brother
befriended my impatienc