ured forth in his defence, should not have been a safeguard in his
eyes, was indeed incredible and revolting. But it was this orphan
helplessness, this afflicting destitution which marked her for his prey.

"Encompassed by the toils of the spoiler, and friendless as she was, the
unhappy Theresa knew not to whom to apply for succour or counsel; and
in this painful exigence, she could only trust to her own discretion
and purity of intention to shield her from the advances from which she
shrunk with horror. Irritated by the opposition he encountered, and
astonished by that dignity of virtue, which, 'severe in youthful
beauty,' had power to awe even a monarch in the consciousness of guilt,
the king by the most ungenerous private scrutiny of her correspondence,
made himself acquainted with her attachment to Lord Hugh; and while she
was eagerly looking for the arrival of the ship which contained her
only protector, the authority of His Majesty prolonged its station in a
distant and unhealthy climate, where her letters did not reach him, and
whence his aid could avail her nothing.

"In this dilemma, when the death of Lady Wriothesly had deprived her of
even the semblance of a friend, I was first presented to Miss Marchmont.
The motive of the king in encouraging my attachment I can hardly guess,
unless the thought to fix her at court by her marriage, where some
future change of sentiment might throw her into his power; or possibly
he hoped to make my addresses the means of separating her from the real
object of her attachment, without contemplating a farther result, and
thus the same wanton selfishness which rendered him regardless of every
tie of moral feeling towards Theresa, led him to prepare a life of
misery and dishonour for his early friend and faithful adherent.

"Agitated by a daily and hourly exposure to the importunities of
Charles; insulted by the suspicions which the insinuations of
Buckingham had excited in the minds of her companions;
friendless--Helpless--hopeless--dreading that she might be betrayed by
her ignorance of the world into some unforeseen evil, and knowing that
even in the event of Percy's return, her engagement with him must long
remain unfulfilled, the unhappy girl naturally looked upon her union
with me as the only deliverance from the assailing misfortunes; and in
an hour of desperation she gave me her hand. That her strongest efforts
of mind had been exerted, from the moment of her marriage, to