wanted his help and assistance, and I
knew no other way of securing him than that. But when were that night
together, and, as I have said, had gone such a length, I found my
weakness; the inclination was not to be resisted, but I was obliged to
yield up all even before he asked it.

However, he was so just to me that he never upbraided me with that; nor
did he ever express the least dislike of my conduct on any other
occasion, but always protested he was as much delighted with my company
as he was the first hour we came together: I mean, came together as
bedfellows.

It is true that he had no wife, that is to say, she was as no wife to
him, and so I was in no danger that way, but the just reflections of
conscience oftentimes snatch a man, especially a man of sense, from the
arms of a mistress, as it did him at last, though on another occasion.

On the other hand, though I was not without secret reproaches of my own
conscience for the life I led, and that even in the greatest height of
the satisfaction I ever took, yet I had the terrible prospect of
poverty and starving, which lay on me as a frightful spectre, so that
there was no looking behind me. But as poverty brought me into it, so
fear of poverty kept me in it, and I frequently resolved to leave it
quite off, if I could but come to lay up money enough to maintain me.
But these were thoughts of no weight, and whenever he came to me they
vanished; for his company was so delightful, that there was no being
melancholy when he was there; the reflections were all the subject of
those hours when I was alone.

I lived six years in this happy but unhappy condition, in which time I
brought him three children, but only the first of them lived; and
though I removed twice in those six years, yet I came back the sixth
year to my first lodgings at Hammersmith. Here it was that I was one
morning surprised with a kind but melancholy letter from my gentleman,
intimating that he was very ill, and was afraid he should have another
fit of sickness, but that his wife's relations being in the house with
him, it would not be practicable to have me with him, which, however,
he expressed his great dissatisfaction in, and that he wished I could
be allowed to tend and nurse him as I did before.

I was very much concerned at this account, and was very impatient to
know how it was with him. I waited a fortnight or thereabouts, and
heard nothing, which surprised me, and I began to be