animation. In this state he was found by his servant,
not many minutes before the flood would have covered him, for he had
not strength to remove out of its way. I ascertained also that the
ball had entered his liver, and had passed out without doing farther
injury.

I now dressed myself, and devoutly thanking God for his miraculous
preservation, took my seat by the bed-side of the patient, which
I never quitted until his perfect recovery. When this was happily
completed, I wrote to my father and to Clara, giving both an exact
account of the whole transaction. Clara, undeceived, made no scruple
of acknowledging her attachment. Talbot was requested by his father to
return home. I accompanied him as far as Calais, where we parted; and
in a few weeks after, I had the pleasure of hearing that my sister had
become his wife.

Left to myself, I returned slowly, and much depressed in spirits,
to Quillac's; where, ordering post-horses, I threw myself into my
travelling carriage, into which my valet had, by my orders, previously
placed my luggage.

"Where are you going to, Monsieur?" said the valet.

"_Au diable!_" said I.

"_Mais les passeports?_" said the man.

I felt that I had sufficient passports for the journey I had proposed;
but correcting myself, said, "to Switzerland." It was the first name
that came into my head; and I had heard that it was the resort of all
my countrymen whose heads, hearts, lungs, or finances were disordered.
But, during my journey, I neither saw nor heard any thing,
consequently took no notes, which my readers will rejoice at, because
they will be spared that inexhaustible supply to the trunk makers, "A
Tour through France and Switzerland." I travelled night and day; for
I could not sleep. The allegory of Io and the gad-fly, in the heathen
mythology, must surely have been intended to represent the being, who,
like myself, was tormented by a bad conscience. Like Io, I flew; and
like her, was I pursued by the eternal gad-fly, wherever I went, and
in vain did I try to escape it.

I passed the Great St Bernard on foot. This interested me as I
approached it. The mountains below, and the Alps above, were one mass
of snow and ice, and I looked down with contempt on the world below
me. I took up my abode in the convent for some time; my ample
contributions to the box in the chapel, made me a welcome sojourner
beyond the limited period allowed to travellers, and I felt less and
less inclined to qui