y
manner and tone-with gentleness, with argument, rage, remonstrance,
prayers, tears, and abuse, but she resisted me for three hours without
abandoning her painful position, in spite of the torments I made her
endure.

At three o'clock in the morning, feeling my mind and body in a state of
exhaustion, I got up and dressed myself by my sense of touch. I opened
the parlour door, and finding the street door locked I shook it till a
servant came and let me out. I went home and got into bed, but excited
nature refused me the sleep I needed so. I took a cup of chocolate, but
it would not stay on my stomach, and soon after a shivering fit warned me
that I was feverish. I continued to be ill till the next day, and then
the fever left me in a state of complete exhaustion.

As I was obliged to keep to my bed for a few days, I knew that I should
soon get my health again; but my chief consolation was that at last I was
cured. My shame had made me hate myself.

When I felt the fever coming on I told my man not to let anybody come to
see me, and to place all my letters in my desk; for I wanted to be
perfectly well before I troubled myself with anything.

On the fourth day I was better, and I told Jarbe to give me my letters. I
found one from Pauline, dated from Madrid, in which she informed me that
Clairmont had saved her life while they were fording a river, and she had
determined to keep him till she got to Lisbon, and would then send him
back by sea. I congratulated myself at the time on her resolve; but it
was a fatal one for Clairmont, and indirectly for me also. Four months
after, I heard that the ship in which he had sailed had been wrecked, and
as I never heard from him again I could only conclude that my faithful
servant had perished amidst the waves.

Amongst my London letters I found two from the infamous mother of the
infamous Charpillon, and one from the girl herself. The first of the
mother's letters, written before I was ill, told me that her daughter was
ill in bed, covered with bruises from the blows I had given her, so that
she would be obliged to institute legal proceedings against me. In the
second letter she said she had heard I too was ill, and that she was
sorry to hear it, her daughter having informed her that I had some reason
for my anger; however, she would not fail to justify herself on the first
opportunity. The Charpillon said in her letter that she knew she had done
wrong, and that she wondered I h