appeared
to be confirmed beyond the power to be shaken. I sought her intercourse
without illicit views; I delighted in the effusions of her candour and
the flashes of her intelligence; I conformed, by a kind of instinctive
hypocrisy, to her views; I spoke and felt from the influence of
immediate and momentary conviction. She imagined she had found in me a
friend worthy to partake in all her sympathies and forward all her
wishes. We were mutually deceived. She was the victim of self-delusion;
but I must charge myself with practising deceit both upon myself and
her.

"I reflect with astonishment and horror on the steps which led to her
degradation and to my calamity. In the high career of passion all
consequences were overlooked. She was the dupe of the most audacious
sophistry and the grossest delusion. I was the slave of sensual impulses
and voluntary blindness. The effect may be easily conceived. Not till
symptoms of pregnancy began to appear were our eyes opened to the ruin
which impended over us.

"Then I began to revolve the consequences, which the mist of passion had
hitherto concealed. I was tormented by the pangs of remorse, and pursued
by the phantom of ingratitude. To complete my despair, this unfortunate
lady was apprized of my marriage with another woman; a circumstance
which I had anxiously concealed from her. She fled from her father's
house at a time when her husband and brother were hourly expected. What
became of her I knew not. She left behind her a letter to her father, in
which the melancholy truth was told.

"Shame and remorse had no power over my life. To elude the storm of
invective and upbraiding, to quiet the uproar of my mind, I did not
betake myself to voluntary death. My pusillanimity still clung to this
wretched existence. I abruptly retired from the scene, and, repairing to
the port, embarked in the first vessel which appeared. The ship chanced
to belong to Wilmington, in Delaware, and here I sought out an obscure
and cheap abode.

"I possessed no means of subsistence. I was unknown to my neighbours,
and desired to remain unknown. I was unqualified for manual labour by
all the habits of my life; but there was no choice between penury and
diligence,--between honest labour and criminal inactivity. I mused
incessantly on the forlornness of my condition. Hour after hour passed,
and the horrors of want began to encompass me. I sought with eagerness
for an avenue by which I might escape from