you, I implore you, to give a proof of it.
Contradict the calumnies which you have spread against me, and repair,
if you can, and if you have a spark of honour left, the miseries which
you have caused to the heart-broken

'H. LYNDON.'

What was this letter meant for but that I should answer it in person? My
excellent ally told me where I should meet Lady Lyndon, and accordingly
I followed, and found her at the Pantheon. I repeated the scene at
Dublin over again; showed her how prodigious my power was, humble as
I was, and that my energy was still untired. 'But,' I added, 'I am as
great in good as I am in evil; as fond and faithful as a friend as I am
terrible as an enemy. I will do everything,' I said, 'which you ask of
me, except when you bid me not to love you. That is beyond my power; and
while my heart has a pulse I must follow you. It is MY fate; your fate.
Cease to battle against it, and be mine. Loveliest of your sex! with
life alone can end my passion for you; and, indeed, it is only by dying
at your command that I can be brought to obey you. Do you wish me to
die?'

She said, laughing (for she was a woman of a lively, humorous turn),
that she did not wish me to commit self-murder; and I felt from that
moment that she was mine.

*****

A year from that day, on the 15th of May, in the year 1773, I had the
honour and happiness to lead to the altar Honoria, Countess of Lyndon,
widow of the late Right Honourable Sir Charles Lyndon, K.B. The ceremony
was performed at St. George's, Hanover Square, by the Reverend Samuel
Runt, her Ladyship's chaplain. A magnificent supper and ball was given
at our house in Berkeley Square, and the next morning I had a duke, four
earls, three generals, and a crowd of the most distinguished people
in London at my LEVEE. Walpole made a lampoon about the marriage, and
Selwyn cut jokes at the 'Cocoa-Tree.' Old Lady Tiptoff, although she had
recommended it, was ready to bite off her fingers with vexation; and as
for young Bullingdon, who was grown a tall lad of fourteen, when called
upon by the Countess to embrace his papa, he shook his fist in my face
and said, 'HE my father! I would as soon call one of your Ladyship's
footmen Papa!'

But I could afford to laugh at the rage of the boy and the old woman,
and at the jokes of the wits of St. James's. I sent off a flaming
account of our nuptials to my mother and my uncle the good Chevalier;
and now, arrived at the pitch of prosperity