 This is a LibreVox recording. All LibreVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Recorded by Chip in Tampa, Florida on March 22, 2006. Mall Flanders by Daniel Defoe Section 8 I was now the most unhappy of all women in the world. Oh, had the story never been told me, had all been well. It had been no crime to have lain with my husband since, as to his being my relation, I had known nothing of it. I had now such a load on my mind that it kept me perpetually waking to reveal it, which would have been some ease to me I could not find would be to any purpose, and yet to conceal it would be next to impossible. Nay, I did not doubt, but I should talk of it in my sleep and tell my husband of it whether I would or no. If I discovered it, the least thing I could expect was to lose my husband, for he was too nice and too honest a man to have continued my husband after he had known I had been his sister, so that I was perplexed to the last degree. I leave it to any man to judge what difficulties presented to my view. I was away from my native country at a distance prodigious and the return to me unpassable. I lived very well, but in a circumstance insufferable in itself. If I had discovered myself to my mother, it might have been difficult to convince her of the particulars, and I had no way to prove them. On the other hand, if she had questioned or doubted me, I had been undone, for the bare suggestion would have immediately separated me from my husband without gaining my mother or him, who would have been neither a husband nor a brother, so that between the surprises on one hand and the uncertainty on the other, I had been sure to be undone. In the meantime, as I was but too sure of the fact, I lived therefore in open, avowed, incest and whoredom, and under all the appearance of an honest wife, and though I was not much touched with the crime of it, yet the action had something in its shocking to nature, and made my husband, as he thought himself, even more nauseous to me. However, upon the most sedate consideration, I felt that it was absolutely necessary to conceal it all and not make the least discovery of it either to my mother or husband, and thus I lived with the greatest pressure imaginable for three years more, but had no more children. During this time, my mother used to be frequently telling me old stories and former adventures, which, however, were no ways pleasant to me, for by it, though she did not tell it me in plain terms, yet I could easily understand, joined with what I had heard myself, both my first tutors, that in her younger days she had been both whore and thief, but I verily believed she had lived to repent sincerely of both, and that she was then a very pious, sober and religious woman. Well, let her life have been what it would, then. It was certain that my life was very uneasy to me, for I lived, as I have said, but in the worst sort of whoredom, and, as I could expect no good of it, so really no good issue came of it, and all my seeming prosperity wore off and ended in misery and destruction. It was some time indeed before it came to this, for but I know not by what ill fate guided, everything went wrong with us afterwards, and that which was worse, my husband grew strangely altered, forward, jealous, and unkind, and I was impatient of bearing his carriage, as the carriage was unreasonable and unjust. These things proceeded so far that we had come at last to be in such ill terms with one another, that I claimed a promise of him, which he entered willingly into with me when I consented to come from England with him, these that if I found the country enough to agree with me or that I did not like to live there, I should come away to England again when I pleased, giving him a year's warning to settle his affairs. I say I now claimed this promise of him, and I must confess I did it not in the most obliging terms that could be in the world, neither, but I insisted that he treated me ill, that I was remote from my friends and could do myself no justice, and that he was jealous without cause, my conversation having been unblameable, and he having no pretense for it, and that to remove to England would take away all occasion from him. I insisted so preemptorily upon it that he could not avoid coming to a point, either to keep his word with me or to break it, and this notwithstanding he used all the skill he was master of and employed his mother and other agents to prevail with me and to alter my resolutions. Indeed the bottom of the thing lay at my heart, and that made all his endeavours fruitless for my heart was alienated from him as a husband. I loathed the thoughts of bedding with him and used a thousand pretenses of illness and humour to prevent his touching me, fearing nothing more than to be with child by him which, to be sure, would have prevented or at least delayed my going over to England. At last I put him so out of humour that he took up a rash and fatal resolution. In short, I should not go to England, and though he had promised me, yet it was an unreasonable thing for me to desire it, that it would be ruinous to his affairs, would unhinge his whole family and be next to an undoing him in the world, that therefore I ought not to desire it of him and that no wife in the world that valued her family and her husband's prosperity would insist upon such a thing. This plunged me again for when I considered the thing calmly and took my husband as he really was, a diligent, careful man in the main work of laying up in the state for his children, and that he knew nothing of the dreadful circumstances that he was in, I could not but confess to myself that my proposal was very unreasonable and that no wife that had the good of her family at heart would have desired. But my discontents were of another nature. I looked upon him no longer as a husband but as a near relation, the son of my own mother, and I resolved somehow or other to be clear of him, but which way I did not know, nor did it seem possible. It is said, by the ill-natured world of our sacks, that if we are set on a thing it is impossible to turn us from our resolutions. But I am never ceased pouring upon the means to bring to pass my voyage and came that length with my husband at last as to propose going without him. This provoked him to the last degree and he called me not only an unkind wife but an unnatural mother and asked me how I could entertain such a thought without horror and was that of leaving my two children, for one was dead, without a mother, and to be brought up by strangers and never to see them more. It was true, had things been right I should not have done it, but now it was my real desire never to see them or him either any more, and as to the charge of unnatural I could easily answer it to myself while I knew that the whole relation was unnatural in the highest degree in the world. However it was plain that there was no bringing my husband to anything. He would neither go with me nor let me go without him, and it was quite out of my power to stir without his consent as anyone that knows the constitution of the country I was in knows very well. We had many family quarrels about it, and they began in time to grow up to a dangerous height for, as I was quite estranged from my husband, as he was called in affection, so I took no heed to my words but sometimes gave him language that was provoking and, in short, strove all I could to bring him to a parting with me, which was what above all things in the world I desired most. He took my carriage very ill, and indeed might well do so, for at last I refused to bed with him, and carrying on the breach upon all occasions to extremity, he told me once he thought I was mad, and if I did not alter my conduct he would put me under cure, that is to say into a madhouse. I told him he should find I was far enough from mad, and that it was not within his power or any other villains to murder me. I confess at the time I was heartily frightened at his thoughts of putting me into a madhouse, which would at once have destroyed all the possibility of breaking the truth out whatever the occasion might be, for that then one would have given credit to a word of it. This, therefore, brought me to a resolution, whatever came of it, to lay open my whole case, but which way to do it or to whom was an inextricable difficulty, and took me many months to resolve. In the meantime another quarrel with my husband happened which came up to such a mad extreme as almost pushed me on to tell it him all to his face, but though I kept it in so as not to come to the particulars, I spoke so much as put him into the utmost confusion and in the end brought out the whole story. He began with a calm expostulation upon my being so resolute to go to England. I defended it, and one hard word bringing on another as is usual in all family strife, he told me, I did not treat him as if he were my husband, or talk of my children as if I were a mother, and in short, that I did not deserve to be used as a wife, that he had used all the fair means possible with me, that he had argued with all the kindnesses and calmness that a husband or a Christian ought to do, and that I made him such a vile return that I treated him rather like a dog than a man, and rather like the most contemptible stranger than a husband, that he was very loatheuse violence with me, but that in short he saw a necessity of it now, and that for the future he should be obliged to take such measures as should reduce me to my duty. My blood was now fired to the utmost, though I knew that what he said was very true and nothing could appear more provoked, I told him for his fair means and his foul, they were equally condemned by me, that for my going to England I was resolved on it come what would, and that as to treating him not like a husband and not showing myself a mother to my children, there might be something more in it than he understood that present, but for his further consideration I thought fit to tell him thus much that he was neither my lawful husband nor they lawful children, and that I had reason to regard neither of them more than I did. I confess I was moved to pity him when I spoke it, for he turned pale as death than stood mute as one thunder struck, and once or twice I thought he would have fainted, in short, it put him in a fit something like an apoplex. He trembled, a sweat or dew ran off his face, and yet he was cold as a clod so that I was forced to run and fetch something for him to keep life in him. When he recovered of that he grew sick and vomited, and in a little after was put to bed, and the next morning was, as he had been indeed all night, in a violent fever. However it went off again, and he recovered, though but slowly, and when he came to be a little better he told me I had given him a mortal wound with my tongue, and he had only one thing to ask before he desired an explanation. I interrupted him and told him I was sorry I had gone so far since I saw what disorder it had put him into, but I desired him not to talk to me of explanations, for that would but make things worse. This heightened his impatience, and indeed perplexed him beyond all bearing, for now he began to suspect that there was some mystery yet unfolded, but could not make the least guess at the real particulars of it. All that ran in his brain was that I had another husband alive, which I could not say in fact might not be true, but I assured him, however, that there was not the least of that in it, and indeed as to my other husband he was effectively dead in law to me, and had told me I should look on him as such, so I had not the least uneasiness on that score. But now I felt the thing too far gone to conceal it much longer, and my husband himself gave me an opportunity to ease myself of the secret, much to my satisfaction. He had labored with me three or four weeks, but to no purpose, only to tell him whether I had spoken these words only as the effect of my passion, to put him in a passion, or whether there was anything of truth in the bottom of them. But I continued inflexible, and would explain nothing unless he would first consent to my going to England, which he would never do, he said, while he lived. On the other hand, I said it was in my power to make him willing when I pleased, nay, to make him entreat me to go, and this increased his curiosity and made him importunate to the highest degree, but it was all to no purpose. At length he tells all this story to his mother, and sets her upon me to get the main secret out of me, and she used her utmost skill with me indeed, but I put her to a full stop at once by telling her that the reason and mystery of the whole matter lay in herself, and that it was my respect to her that had made me conceal it, and that in short I could go no farther and therefore conjured her not to insist upon it. She was struck dumb at this suggestion, and could not tell what to say or to think, but laying aside the supposition as a policy of mine, continued her importunity on account of her son and, if possible, to make up the breach between us two. As to that, I told her, it was indeed a good design in her, but that it was impossible to be done, and that if I should reveal to her the truth of what she desired, she would grant it to be impossible and cease to desire it. At least I seemed to be prevailed upon by her importunity, and I told her I dared trust her with a secret of the greatest importance, and she would soon see this was so, and why I would consent to lodge it in her breast if she would engage solemnly not to acquaint her son with it without my consent. She was long in promising this part, but rather than not come at the main secret she agreed to that too, and after a great many other preliminaries I began and told her the whole story. First I told her how much she was concerned in all the unhappy breach which had happened between her son and me by telling me her own story and her London name, and that the surprise she saw I was in was upon that occasion. Then I told her my own story and my name, and assured her by such other tokens that she could not deny that I was no other, nor more nor less than her own child, her daughter born of her body in Newgate, the same that had saved her from the gallows by being in her belly, and the same that she left in such and such hands when she was transported. It is impossible to express the astonishment she was in. She was not inclined to believe the story or to remember the particulars, for she immediately foresaw the confusion that must follow in the family upon it. But everything concurred so exactly with the stories she had told me of herself, and which, if she had not told me, she would perhaps have been content to have denied, that she had stopped her own mouth, and she had nothing to do but to take me about the neck and kiss me and cry most vehemently over me, without speaking one word for a long time together. At last she broke out, unhappy child, says she, what miserable chance could bring thee hither, and in the arms of my own son, too dreadful girl, said she, why we are all undone, married to thine own brother, three children, and two alive, all of the same flesh and blood. My son and my daughter lying together as husband and wife, all confusion and distraction, forever miserable family. What will become of us? What is to be said? What is to be done? And thus she ran on for a great while, nor had I any power to speak, or if I had, I did not know what to say, for every word wounded me to the soul. With this kind of amazement on our thoughts we parted for the first time, though my mother was more surprised than I was, because it was more news to her than to me. However, she promised again to me at the parting that she would say nothing of it to her son, till we had talked of it again. It was not long, you may be sure, before we had a second conference upon the same subject, when, as if she had been willing to forget the story she had told me of herself, or to suppose that I had forgot some of the particulars, she began to tell them with alterations and omissions. But I refreshed her memory and set her to rights in many things, which I suppose she had forgot, and then came in so opportunely with the whole history that it was impossible for her to go from it. And then she fell into her rhapsodies again, and exclamations at the severity of her misfortunes. When these things were a little over with her we fell into a close debate about what should be first done before we gave an account of the matter to my husband. But to what purpose could be all our consultations? We could neither of us see our way through it, nor see how it could be safe to open such a scene to him. It was impossible to make any judgment or to give any guess at what temper he would receive it in, or what measures he would take upon it, and if he should have so little government of himself as to make it public, we easily foresaw that it would be the ruin of the whole family, and expose my mother and me to the last degree, and if at last he should take the advantage that the law would give him, he might put me away with disdain and leave me too soon for the little portion that I had, and perhaps waste it all in the suit, and then be a beggar. The children would be ruined too, having no legal claim to any of his effects, and thus I should see him, perhaps, in the arms of another wife in a few months, and be myself the most miserable creature alive. My mother was as sensible of this as I, and upon the whole we knew not what to do. After some time we came to more sober resolutions, but then it was with this misfortune, too, that my mother's opinion and mine were quite different from one another, and indeed inconsistent with one another, for my mother's opinion was that I should bury the whole thing entirely, and continue to live with him as my husband, till some other event should make the discovery a bit more convenient, and that in the meantime she would endeavor to reconcile us together again, and restore our mutual comfort and family peace, that we might lie as we used to do together, and so let the whole matter remain a secret as close as death, for child said she, we are both undone if it comes out. To encourage me to this she promised to make me easy in my circumstances as far as she was able, and to leave me what she could at her death, secured for me separately from my husband, so that if it should come out afterwards I should not be left destitute, but be able to stand on my own feet and procure justice from him. The proposal did not agree at all with my judgment of the thing, though it was very fair and kind, my mother, but my thoughts ran quite another way. As to keeping the thing in our breasts and letting it all remain as it was, I told her it was impossible, and I asked her how she could think I could bear the thoughts of lying next to my own brother. In the next place I told her that her being alive was the only support of the discovery, and that while she owned me for the child, and saw reason to be satisfied that I was so, nobody else would doubt it, and that if she should die before the discovery I should be taken for an impudent creature that had forged such a thing to go away from my husband, or should be counted crazed and distracted. Then I told her how he had threatened already to put me into a man-house, and what concern I had been in about it, and how that was the thing that drove me to the necessity of discovering it to her as I had done. From all which I told her I had, on the most serious reflections I was able to make in the case, come to this resolution, which I hoped she would like, as a medium between both, these that she should use her endeavors with her son to give me leave to go to England as I had desired, and to furnish me with a sufficient sum of money, either in goods along with me or in bills for my support there, all along suggesting that he might, one time or other, think it proper to come over to me. That when I was gone she should then, in cold blood, and after first obliging him in the solemnest manner possible to secrecy, discover the case to him, doing it gradually, and as her own discretion should guide her, so that he might not be surprised with it and fly out into any passions and excesses on my account or on hers, and that she should concern herself to prevent his slighting the children or marrying again unless he had a certain account of my being dead. This was my scheme and my reasons were good. I was really alienated from him in all consequences of these things. Indeed, I mortally hated him as a husband, and it was impossible to remove that riveted aversion I had to him. At the same time it being unlawful incestuous living added to that aversion, and, though I had no great concern about it, in a point of conscience, yet everything added to make cohabiting with him the most nauseous thing to me in the world, and I think verily it was to come to such a height that I could almost willingly have embraced a dog as have let him offer anything of that kind to me, for which reason I could not bear the thoughts of coming between the sheets with him. I cannot say that I was right in point of policy in carrying it at such a length, while at the same time I did not resolve to discover the thing to him, but I am giving an account of what was, not of what ought or ought not to be. In their directly opposite opinion to one another my mother and I continued a long time, and it was impossible to reconcile our judgments. Many disputes we had about it, but we could never either of us yield our own or bring over the other. I insisted on my aversion to lying with my own brother, and she insisted upon its being impossible to bring him to consent to my going from him to England, and in this uncertainty we continued, not differing so as to quarrel or anything like it, but so as not to be able to resolve what we should do to make up that terrible breach that was before us. At last I resolved on a desperate course, and told my mother of my resolution, vis that in short I would tell him of it myself. My mother was frightened to the last degree at the very thoughts of it, but I bid her be easy. I told her I would do it gradually and softly, and with all the art of good humour I was mistress of, and time it also as well as I could, taking him in good humour too. I told her I did not question, but if I could be hypocrite enough to feign more affection to him than I really had, I should succeed in all my design, and we might part by consent, and with a good agreement, for I might love him well enough for a brother, though I could not for a husband. All this while he lay at my mother to find out, if possible, what was the meaning of that dreadful expression of mine, as he called it, which I had mentioned before, namely that I was not his lawful wife, nor my children, his legal children. My mother put him off, told him that she could bring me to no explanations, but found there was something that disturbed me very much, and that she hoped she could get it out of me in time, and that in the meantime she recommended to him earnestly to use me more tenderly, and win me with his usual good carriage. I told him of his terrifying and affrighting me with his threats of sending me to a madhouse and the like, and advised him not to make a woman desperate on any count whatsoever. He promised her to soften his behaviour, and bid her assure me that he loved me as well as ever, and that he had no such design as that of sending me to a madhouse, whatever he might say in his passion. Also he desired my mother to use the same persuasions on me too, that our affections might be renewed, and we might lie together in a good understanding, as we used to do. I found the effects of this treaty presently. My husband's conduct was immediately altered, and he was quite another man to me. Nothing could be kinder and more obliging than he was to me upon all occasions, and I could do no less than make some return for it, which I did as well as I could, but it was in an awkward manner at best, for nothing was more frightful to me than his caresses, and the apprehensions of being with child again by him was ready to throw me into fits, and this made me see that there was an absolute necessity of breaking the case to him without any more delay, which, however, I did with all the caution and reserve imaginable. He had continued his altered carriage to me near a month, and we began to live a new kind of life with one another, and could I have satisfied myself to have gone on with it, I believe I might have continued as long as we had continued alive together. One evening, as we were sitting and talking very friendly together under a little awning which served as an arbor at the entrance from our house into the garden, he was in a very pleasant, agreeable humor, and said abundance of kind things to me relating to the pleasure of our present good agreement and the disorders of our past breach, and what a satisfaction it was to him that we had room to hope that we should never have any more of it. I fetched a deep sigh, and told him there was nobody in the world could be more delighted than I was in the good agreement we had always kept up, or the more afflicted with the breach of it, and should be so still. But I was sorry to tell him that there was an unhappy circumstance in our case which lay too close to my heart, and which I knew not how to break to him, that rendered my part of it very miserable, and took me from all the comfort of the rest. He important me to tell him what it was. I told him I could not tell how to do it, but while it was concealed from him I alone was unhappy, but that if he knew it also we should both be so, and that therefore to keep him in the dark about it was the kindest thing that I could do, and it was on that count alone that I kept a secret from him, the very keeping of which I thought would first or last be my destruction. It is impossible to express his surprise at this relation, and at the double importunity which he used with me to discover it to him. He told me I could not be called kind to him, nay, I could not be faithful to him if I concealed it from him. I told him I thought so too, and yet I could not do it. He went back to what I had said before to him, and told me he hoped it did not relate to what I had said in my passion, and that he had resolved to forget all of that as the effect of a rash-provoked spirit. I told him I wished I could forget it all too, but that it was not to be done. The impression was too deep, and I could not do it. It was impossible. He then told me he was resolved not to differ with me in anything, and that therefore he would importune me no more about it, resolving to acquiesce in whatever I did or said, only begged that I should then agree that whatever it was it should no more interrupt our quiet and our mutual kindness. This was the most provoking thing he could have said to me, for I really wanted his further importunities that I might be prevailed with to bring out what indeed it was like death to me to conceal. So I answered him plainly, that I could not say I was glad not to be importuned, thought I could not tell how to comply. But come, my dear, said I, what conditions will you make with me upon the opening of this affair to you? Any conditions in the world, said he, that you can in reason desire of me? Well, said I, come give it me under your hand, that if you do not find I am in any fault or that I am willingly concerned in the causes of the misfortune that is to follow, you will not blame me, use me worse, or do me any injury, or make me be the sufferer for what is not my fault. That, says he, is the most reasonable demand in the world, not to blame you for what is not your fault, give me pen and ink, he said. So I ran in and fetched pen, ink, and paper, and he wrote the condition down in the very words I proposed it, and signed it with his name. Well, says he, what is next, my dear? Why, says I, the next is that you will not blame me for not discovering the secret of it to you before I knew it. Very just again, says he, with all my heart, so he wrote down that also and signed it. Well, my dear, said I, then I have but one condition more to make with you, and that is that there is nobody concerned in it but you and I. You shall not discover it to any other person in the world except your own mother, and that in all the measures you shall take upon the discovery as I am equally concerned in it with you, though as innocent as yourself you shall do nothing in passion, nothing to my prejudice or your mother's prejudice without my knowledge and consent. This a little amazed him, and he wrote down the words distinctly but read them over and over before he signed them, hesitating at them several times and repeating them. My mother's prejudice and your prejudice? What mysterious thing can this be? However, he at last signed it. Well, says I, my dear, I'll ask you no more under your hand, but as you are to bear the most unexpected and surprising thing that perhaps ever befell any family in the world, I beg you to promise me you will receive it with composure and a presence of mind suitable to a man of sense. I'll do my utmost, says he, upon condition you will keep me no longer in suspense where you terrify me with all these preliminaries. Well then, says I, it is this. As I told you before in a heat that I was not your lawful wife and that our children are not legal children, so I must tell you now in calmness and in kindness but with affection enough that I am your own sister and that you, my own brother, and that we are both the children of our mother now alive and in the house who is convinced of the truth of it in a manner not to be denied or contradicted. I saw him turn pale and look wild, and I said now remember your promise and receive it with presence of mind, for who could have said more to prepare you for it than I have done? However, I called a servant and got him a little glass of rum, which is the usual dram of that country, for he was just fainting away. When he was a little recovered, I said to him, this story you may be sure requires a long explanation and therefore have patience and compose your mind to hear it out and I'll make it as short as I can. And with this I told him what I thought was needful of the fact and particularly how my mother came to discover it to me as above. And now, my dear, says I, you will see the reason for my capitulations and that I neither have been the cause of this matter nor could be so and that I could know nothing of it before now. I am fully satisfied of that, says he, but is a dreadful surprise to me. However, I know a remedy for it all and a remedy that shall put an end to your difficulties without your going to England. That would be strange as I as all the rest. No, no, said he, I'll make it easy. There's nobody in the way of it but myself. He looked a little disordered when he said this, but I did not apprehend anything from it at the time believing, as it used to be said, that they who do those things never talk of them or they who talk of such things never do them. But things were not come to their height with him and I observed he became passive and melancholy and in a word as I thought a little distempered in his head. I endeavored to talk him into a temper and to reason him into a kind of scheme for our government in the affair and sometimes he would be well and talk with some courage about it. But the weight of it lay too heavy upon his thoughts and, in short, it went so far that he made attempts upon himself. And in one of them had actually strangled himself and had not his mother come into the room in the very moment he had died, but with the help of a negro servant she cut him down and recovered him. Things were now come to a lamentable height in the family. My pity for him now began to revive that affection which, at first, I really had for him, and I endeavored sincerely by all the kind carriage I could to make up the breach, but in short it had gotten too great a head. It prayed upon his spirits and it threw him into a long lingering consumption, though it happened not to be mortal. In the distress I did not know what to do, as his life was apparently declining and I might perhaps have married again there very much to my advantage. It had been certainly my business to have stayed in the country, but my mind was restless too and uneasy. I hankered after coming to England and nothing would satisfy me without it. In short, by an unwearyed importunity, my husband, who was apparently decaying as I observed, was at last prevailed with, and so my own fate pushing me on the way was made clear for me and my mother concurring, I obtained a very good cargo for my coming to England. So ends Section 8. Section 9. When he heard of me, but it was so oddly managed that I felt the disappointments very sensibly afterwards, as you shall hear in its time. I came away for England in the month of August, after I had been eight years in that country, and now a new scene of misfortunes attended me, which perhaps few women have gone through the life of. We had an indifferent good voyage till we came just upon the coast of England, and where we arrived in two and thirty days, but were then ruffled with two or three storms, one of which drove us away to the coast of Ireland, and we put in at Kinsdale. We remained there about thirteen days, got some refreshment on shore, and put to sea again, though we met with very bad weather again in which the ship sprung her main mast, as they called it, for I knew not what they meant. But we got at last into Milford Haven, in Wales, where though it was remote from our port, yet having my foot safe upon firm ground of my native country, the Isle of Britain, I resolved to venture it no more upon the waters, which had been so terrible to me. So getting my clothes and money on shore, with my bills of loading and other papers, I resolved to come for London, and leave the ship to get her port as she could. The port, whether she was bound, was to Bristol, where my brother's chief correspondent lived. I got to London in about three weeks, where I heard a little while after that the ship was arrived in Bristol, but at the same time had the misfortune to know that by the violent weather she had been in, the breaking of her main mast, she had great damage on board, and that a great part of her cargo was spoiled. I had now a new scene of life upon my hands, and a dreadful appearance it had. I was come away with a kind of final farewell. What I brought with me was indeed considerable, had it come safe, and by the help of it, I might have married again tolerably well, but as it was, I was reduced to between two or three hundred pounds in the whole, and this without any hope of recruit. I was entirely without friends, nay, even so much as without acquaintance, for I found it was absolutely necessary not to revive former acquaintances. As for my subtle friend that set me up formally for a fortune, she was dead, and her husband also, as I was informed, upon sending a person unknown to inquire. The looking after my cargo of goods soon after obliged me to take a journey to Bristol, and during my attendance upon that affair I took the diversion of going to the bath, for as I was still far from being old, so my humor, which was always gay, continued so to an extreme, and being now, as it were, a woman of fortune, though I was a woman without a fortune, I expected something or other might happen my way, that might mend my circumstances. As had been my case before. The bath is a place of gallantry enough, expensive, and full of snares. I went thither, indeed, in view of taking anything that might offer, but I must do myself justice, as to protest I knew nothing amiss. I meant nothing, but in an honest way, nor had I any thoughts about me at first that looked the way which afterwards I suffered them to be guided. Here I stayed the whole later season, as it is called there, and contracted some unhappy acquaintances, which rather prompted the follies I fell afterwards into, than fortified me against them. I lived pleasantly enough, kept good company, that is to say gay fine company, but had the discouragement to find this way of living sunk me exceedingly, and that as I had no settled income, so spending upon the main stock was but a certain kind of bleeding to death, and this gave me many sad reflections in the interval of my other thoughts. However, I shook them off, and still flattered myself that something or other might offer my advantage. But I was in the wrong place for it. I was not now, at Reddrift, where, if I had set myself tolerably up, some honest sea-captain or other might have talked with me upon the honourable terms of matrimony. But I was at the bath, where men find a mistress sometimes, but very rarely look for a wife, and consequently all the particular acquaintances a woman can expect to make there must have some tendency that way. I had spent the first season well enough, for though I had contracted some acquaintance with a gentleman who came to the bath for his diversion, yet I had entered into no fallacious treaty, as it might be called. I had resisted some casual offers of gallantry, and had managed that way well enough. I was not wicked enough to come into the crime for the mere vice of it, and I had no extraordinary offers made me that tempted me with the main thing which I wanted. However, I went this length the first season vis, I contracted an acquaintance with a woman in whose house I lodged, who though she did not keep an ill-house, as we call it, yet had none of the best principles in herself. I had on all occasions behaved myself so well as not to get the least slur upon my reputation on any account whatever, and all the men that I had conversed with were of so good reputation that I had not given the least reflection by conversing with them, nor did any of them seem to think that there was room for wicked correspondence, if they had any of them offered it. Yet there was one gentleman, as above, who always singled me out for the diversion of my company, as he called it, which, as he was pleased to say, was very agreeable to him, but at that time there was no more in it. I had many melancholy hours at the bath, after the company was gone, for though I went to Bristol some time for disposing of my effects, and for recruits of money, yet I chose to come back to bath for my residence, because being on good terms with the woman in whose house I lodged in the summer, I found that during the winter I lived rather cheaper there than I could anywhere else. Here, I say, I passed the winter as heavily as I had passed the autumn cheerfully, but having contracted a near intimacy with the said woman in whose house I lodged, I could not avoid communicating to her something of what lay hardest upon my mind, and particularly the narrowness of my circumstances, and the loss of my fortune by the damage of my goods at sea. I told her also that I had a mother and a brother in Virginia in good circumstances, and as I had really written back to my mother in particular to represent my condition, and the great loss I had received, which indeed came to almost five hundred pounds, so I did not fail to let my new friend know that I expected a supply from thence, and so indeed I did, and as the ships went from Bristol to York River in Virginia, and back again generally in less time from London, and that my brother corresponded chiefly at Bristol, I thought it was much better for me to wait here for my returns than to go to London, where also I had not the least acquaintance. My new friend appeared sensibly affected with my condition, and indeed was so very kind as to reduce the rate of my living with her to so low a price during the winter that she convinced me she got nothing by me, and as for lodging during the winter I paid nothing at all. When the spring season came on she continued to be as kind to me as she could, and I lodged with her for a time, till it was found necessary to do otherwise. She had some persons of character that frequently lodged in her house, and in particular the gentleman who, as I said, singled me out for his companion, the winner before, and he came down again with another gentleman in his company and two servants, and lodged in the same house. I suspected that my landlady had invited him thither, letting him know that I was still with her, but she denied it, and protested to me that she did not, and he said the same. In a word this gentleman came down and continued to single me out for his peculiar confidence as well as conversation. He was a complete gentleman, that must be confessed, and his company was very agreeable to me, as mine, if I might believe him, was to him. He made no professions to be but an extraordinary respect, and he had such an opinion of my virtue that, as he often professed, he believed if he should offer anything else I should reject him with contempt. He soon understood for me that I was a widow, that I had arrived at Bristol from Virginia by the last ships, and that I awaited at Bath till the next Virginia fleet should arrive, by which I expected considerable effects. I understood by him, and by others of him, that he had a wife, but that the lady was distempered in her head, and was under the conduct of her own relations, which he consented to, to avoid any reflections that might, as was not unusual in such cases, be cast on him for mismanaging her cure, and in the meantime he came to the Bath to divert his thoughts from the disturbance of such a melancholy circumstance as that was. My landlady, who of her own accord encouraged the correspondence on all occasions, gave me an advantageous character of him as a man of honor and of virtue, as well as of great estate, and indeed I had a great deal of reason to say so of him too, for though we lodged both on a floor, and he had frequently come into my chamber, even when I was in bed, and I also into his when he was in bed, yet he never offered anything to me further than a kiss. Or so much as solicited me to anything till long after, as you shall hear. I frequently took notice to my landlady of his exceeding modesty, and she again used to tell me, she believed it was so from the beginning, however she used to tell me that she thought I ought to expect some gratification from him for my company, for indeed he did, as it were, engross me, and I was seldom from him. I told her I had not given him the least occasion to think I wanted it, or that I would accept it from him. She told me that she would take that part upon her, and she did so, and managed it so dexterously, that the first time we were together alone, after she had talked with him, he began to inquire a little into my circumstances, as how I had subsisted myself since I came on shore, and whether I did not want money. I stood off very boldly. I told him that the merchant that I had been co-signed to had so honestly managed for me that I had not wanted, and that I hoped, with frugal management, I should make it hold out till more would come, which I expected by the next fleet, that in the meantime I had entrenched my expenses, and whereas I kept a maid last season, now I lived without, and whereas I had a chamber and a dining-room, then on the first floor, as he knew, I now had but one room, two pairs of stairs, and the like. But I live, said I, as well satisfied now as I did then, adding that his company had been a means to make me live much more cheerfully than otherwise I should have done, for which I was much obliged to him, and so I put off all room for any offer for the present. However, it was not long before he attacked me again, and told me he found that I was backward to trust him with a secret of my circumstances, which he was sorry for, assuring me that he inquired into it with no design to dissatisfy his own curiosity, but merely to assist me, if there was any occasion. But since I would not own myself to stand in need of any assistance, he had but one thing more to desire of me, and that was that I would promise him that when I was any way straightened, or like it to be so, I would frankly tell him of it, and that I would make use of him with the same freedom that he made the offer, adding that I should always find I had a true friend, though perhaps I was afraid to trust him. I admitted nothing that was fit to be said, by one indefinitely obliged, to let him know that I had a due sense of his kindness, and indeed from that time I did not appear so much reserved to him as I had done before, though still within the bounds of the strictest virtue on both sides, but how free soever our conversation was I could not arrive to that sort of freedom which he desired, to tell him I wanted money, though I was secretly very glad of his offer. Some weeks passed after this, and still I never asked him for money, when my landlady, a cunning creature, who had often pressed me to it, but found that I could not do it, makes a story of her own inventing, and comes in bluntly to me when we were together. Oh, widow, says she, I have bad news to tell you this morning. What is that, said I? Are the Virginia ships taken by the French? For that was my fear. No, no, says she, but the man you sent to Bristol yesterday for money has come back, and says he has brought none. Now I could by no means like her project. I thought it looked too much like prompting him, which indeed he did not want, and I clearly saw that I should lose nothing by being backward to ask. So I took her up short. I can't imagine why he should say so to you, said I, for I assure you he brought me all the money I sent him for, and here it is, said I, pulling out my purse with about twelve guineas in it, and added, I intend you shall have most of it by and by. He seemed to taste it a little at her talking, as she did at first, as well as I, taking it, as I fancied he would, as something forward of her. But when he saw me give such an answer, he came immediately to himself again. The next morning we talked of it again, when I found he was fully satisfied, and smiling, said he hoped I would not want money, and not tell him of it, and that I had promised him otherwise. I told him I had been very much dissatisfied at my landlady's talking, so publicly the day before, of what she had nothing to do with, but I suppose she wanted what I owed her, which was about eight guineas, which I had resolved to give her, and had, accordingly, given it to her the same night she talked so foolishly. He was in might good humor when he heard me say I had paid her, and it went off into some other discourse at that time. But the next morning, he, having heard me up about my room before him, he called to me, and I, answering, he asked me to come into his chamber. He was in bed when I came in, and he made me come and sit down on his bedside, for he said he had something to say to me, which was of some moment. After some very kind expressions, he asked me if I would be very honest to him, and give a sincere answer to one thing he would desire of me. After some cavale, at the word sincere, and asking him if I had ever given him any answers, which were not sincere, I promised him I would. Why, then, his request was, he said, to let him see my purse. I immediately put my hand into my pocket, and, laughing to him, pulled it out, and there was in it three guineas and a half. Then he asked me if there was all the money I had. I told him, no, laughing again, not by a great deal. Well, then, he said, he would have me promised to go and fetch him all the money I had, every farthing. I told him I would, and I went into my chamber and fetched him a little private drawer, where I had about six guineas more, and some silver, and threw it all down upon the bed, and I told him there was all my wealth, honestly, to a shilling. He looked a little at it, but did not tell it, and huddled it into the drawer again. And then, reaching his pocket, pulled out a key, and bade me open a little walnut tree-box he had upon the table, and bring him such a drawer, which I did. In which drawer there was a great deal of money and gold, I believe, near two hundred guineas. But I knew not how much. He took the drawer, and, taking my hand, made me put it in, and take a whole handful. I was backward at that, but he held my hand hard in his hand, and put it in the drawer, and made me take out as many guineas almost as I could take up at once. When I had done so, he made me put them into my lap, and took my little drawer, and poured out all my money among his, and bade me to get me gone, and carry it all home into my own chamber. Related this story, the more particularly because of the good humor there was in it, and to show the temper with which we conversed. It was not long after this, but he began every day to find fault with my clothes, and my laces, and headdresses, and, in a word, pressed me to buy better, in which, by the way, I was willing enough to do, but I did not seem to be so, for I loved nothing in the world better than fine clothes. I told him I must housewife the money he had lent me, or else I should not be able to pay him again. He then told me, in a few words, that as he had a sincere respect for me, and knew my circumstances, he had not lent me that money, but given it to me, and that he thought I had merited it from him by giving him my company so entirely as I had done. After this he made me take a maid, and keep house, and his friend that came with him to Bath, being gone, he obliged me to diet him, which I did very willingly, believing, as it appeared, that I should lose nothing by it, nor did the woman of the house fail to find her account in it too. We had lived thus near three months. When, the company beginning to weir away at the Bath, he talked of going away, and feign he would have me go to London with him. I was not very easy in that proposal, not knowing what posture I was to live in there, or how he might use me. But while this was in debate, he fell very sick. He had gone out to a place in Somersetshire, called Shepton, where he had some business, and was there taken very ill, and so ill that he could not travel. So he sent his men back to Bath to beg me that I would hire a coach and come over to him. Before he went, he had left all his money and other things of value with me, and what to do with them I did not know, but I secured them as well as I could, and locked up the lodgings, and went to him, where I found him very ill indeed. However, I persuaded him to be carried in a litter to the Bath, where there was more help and better advice to be had. He consented, and I brought him to the Bath, which was about fifteen miles as I remember. Here he continued very ill of a fever, and kept his bed five weeks, all which time I nursed him and tended him myself, as much and as carefully as I had been his wife. Indeed, if I had been his wife, I could not have done more. I sat up with him so much and so often that at last, indeed, he would not let me sit up any longer, and then I got a pallet bed into his room, and lay in it just at his bed's feet. I was indeed sensibly affected with his condition, and with the apprehension of losing such a friend as he was, and was like to be to me, and I used to sit and cry by him many hours together. However, at last, he grew better, and gave hopes that he would recover, as indeed he did, though very slowly. Word otherwise than what I am going to say, I should not be backward to disclose it, as it is apparent that I have done in other cases in this account, but I affirm that through all of this conversation, abating the freedom of coming into the chamber when I or he was in bed, and abating the necessary offices of attending him night and day when he was sick, there had not passed the least immodest word or action between us. Oh, that it had been so to the last! After some time he gathered strength and grew well apiece, and I would have removed my pallet bed, but he would not let me, till he was able to venture himself without anybody to sit up with him, and then I removed to my own chamber. He took many occasions to express his sense of tenderness and concern for him, and when he grew quite well he made me a present of fifty guineas for my care, and, as he called it, for hazarding my life to save his. And now he made deep protestations of a sincere, involable affection for me, but all along attested it to be with the utmost reserve for my virtue and his own. I told him I was fully satisfied of it. He carried it that length that he protested to me, that if he was naked in bed with me he was, as sacredly preserved, my virtue, as he would defend it if I was assaulted by a ravisher. I believed him, and told him I did so, but this did not satisfy him. He would, he said, wait for some opportunity to give me an undoubted testimony of it. It was a great while after this that I had occasion on my own business to go to Bristol, upon which he hired me a coach, and would go with me and did so. And now, indeed, our intimacy increased. From Bristol he carried me to Gloucester, which was merely a journey of pleasure, to take the air, and here it was to have no lodging in the inn, but in one large chamber with two beds in it. The master of the house, going up with us to show his rooms, and coming into that room, said very frankly to him, Sir, it is none of my business to inquire whether the lady be her spouse or no, but if not, you may lie as honestly as these two beds as if you were in two chambers. And with that he pulled a great curtain, which drew quite across the room and effectually divided the beds. Well, says my friend, very readily, these beds will do, and as for the rest, we are too near akin to lie together, though we may lodge near one another. And this put an honest face on the thing too. When we came to go to bed, he decently went out of the room till I was in bed, and then went to bed in the bed on his own side of the room, but lay there talking to me a great while. At last, repeating his usual saying that he could lie naked in the bed with me and not offer me the least injury, he starts out of his bed. And now, my dear, says he, you shall see how just I will be to you, and that I can keep my word, in a way he comes to my bed. I resisted a little, but I must confess I should not have resisted him much if he had not made those promises at all. So after a little struggle, as I said, I lay still and let him come to bed. When he was there he took me in his arms, and so I lay all night with him, but he had no more to do with me, or offered anything to me other than embracing me, as I say. In his arms, no, not the whole night, but rose up and dressed him in the morning, and left me as innocent for him as I was the day I was born. This was a surprising thing to me, and perhaps may be so to others, who know how the laws of nature work, for he was a strong, vigorous, brisk person. Nor did he act thus on a principle of religion at all, but of mere affection, insisting on it, that though I was to him the most agreeable woman in the world, yet because he loved me he could not injure me. I own it was a noble principle, but as it was that I was never understood before, so it was to me perfectly amazing. We travelled the rest of the journey as we did before, and came back to the bath, where, as he had opportunity to come to me when he would, he often repeated the moderation, and I frequently lay with him, and he with me. And although all the familiarities between man and wife were common to us, yet he never once offered to go any further, and he valued himself much upon it. I do not say that I was so wholly pleased with it, as he thought I was, for I own much wicketer than he, as you shall hear presently. End of Section 9 This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Miet of Miet's Bedtime Story podcast Morphlanders by Daniel Defoe Section 10 We lived thus near two years, only with this exception, that he went three times to London in that time, and once he continued there four months. But to do him justice he always supplied me with money to subsist me very handsomely. Had we continued thus, I confess we had had much to boast of. But as wise men say, it is ill-venturing too near the brink of a command, so we found it. And here again I must do him the justice to own that the first breach was not on his part. It was one night that we were in bed together warm and merry, and having drunk, I think, a little more wine that night, both of us than usual, although not in the least to disorder either of us, when, after some other follies which I cannot name, and being clasped close in his arms, I told him. I repeated with shame and horror of soul, that I could find in my heart to discharge him of his engagement for one night, and no more. He took me at my word immediately, and after that there was no resisting him. Neither indeed had I any mind to resist him any more. Let what would come of it. Thus the government of our virtue was broken, and I exchanged the place of friend for that unmusical, harsh, sounding title of whore. In the morning we were both at our penitentials, I cried very heartily. He expressed himself very sorry. But that was all either of us could do at the time, and the way being thus cleared, and the bars of virtue in conscience thus removed. We had the less difficult afterwards to struggle with. It was but a dull kind of conversation that we had together for all the rest of the week. I looked on him with blushes, and every now and then started that melancholy objection. What if I should be with child now? What will become of me then? He encouraged me by telling me that as long as I was true to him he would be so to me, and since it was gone such a length which indeed he never intended. Yet if I was with child he would take care of that and of me too. This hardened us both. I assured him that if I was with child I would die for want of a midwife rather than name him as the father of it, and he assured me I should never want if I should be with child. These mutual assurances hardened us in the thing, and after this we repeated the crime as often as we pleased, till at length, as I had feared. So it came to pass, and I was indeed with child. After I was sure it was so, and I had satisfied him of it too, we began to think of taking measures for the managing it, and I proposed trusting the secret to my landlady and asking her advice, which he agreed to. My landlady, a woman, as I found, used to such things, made light of it. She said she knew it would come to that at last, and made us very merry about it. As I said above, we found her an experienced old lady at such work. She undertook everything, engaged to procure a midwife and a nurse, to satisfy all inquiries, and bring us off with reputation. And she did so very dexterously indeed. When I grew near my time, she desired my gentleman to go away to London, or make as if he did so. When he was gone, she acquainted the parish officers that there was a lady ready to lie in at her house, but that she knew her husband very well, and gave them, as she pretended, an account of his name, which she called Sir Walter Cleave, telling them he was a very worthy gentleman, and that she would answer for all inquiries and the like. This satisfied the parish officers presently, and I lay in with as much credit as I could have done if I had really been my lady Cleave, and was assisted in my travail by three or four of the best citizens' wives of Bath, who lived in the neighbourhood, which, however, made me a little more expensive to him. I often expressed my concern about it, but he bid me not to be concerned about it. As he had furnished me very sufficiently with money for the extraordinary expenses of my lying in, I had everything very handsome about me, but it did not affect to be gay or extravagant, neither. Besides, knowing my own circumstances, and knowing the world as I had done, and that such kind of things do not often last long. I took care to lay up as much money as I could for a wet day as I called it, making him believe it was all spent upon the extraordinary appearance of things in my lying in. By this means, and including what he had given me above, I had, at the end of my lying in, about two hundred guineas by me, including also what was left of my own. I was brought to bed of a fine boy indeed, and a charming child at war's. And when he heard of it, he wrote me a very kind, obliging letter about it, and then told me he thought it would look better for me to come away for London as soon as I was up and well, that he had provided apartments for me at Hammersmith. And if I came thither only from London, and then after a little while I should go back to the bath, and he would go with me. I liked this offer very well, and accordingly hired a coach on purpose, and taking my child and a wet nurse to tend and suckle it, and a maid servant with me, away I went for London. He met me at Reading, in his own chariot, and taking me into that, left the servant and the child and the hired coach. And so he brought me to my new lodgings at Hammersmith, with which I had abundance of reason to be very well pleased, for they were very handsome rooms, and I was very well accommodated. And now I was indeed in the height of what I might call my prosperity, and I wanted nothing but to be a wife, which, however, could not be in this case. There was no room for it. And therefore, on all occasions, I studied to save what I could, as I have said above, against a time of scarcity, knowing well enough that such things as these do not always continue, that men that keep mistresses often change them, grow weary of them, or jealous of them, or something or other happens to make them withdraw their bounty. And sometimes the ladies that are thus well used are not careful by a prudent conduct to preserve the esteem of their persons, or the nice article of their fidelity. And then they are justly cast off with contempt. But I was secured in this point, for as I had no inclination to change, so I had no manner of acquaintance in the whole house, and so no temptation to look any farther. I kept no company but in the family when I lodged, and with the clergyman's lady at next door, so that when he was absent I visited nobody, nor did he ever find me out of my chamber or parlor when he came down if I went anywhere to take the air it was always with him. The living in this manner with him, and his with me, was certainly the most undesigned thing in the world. He often protested to me that when he first became acquainted with me, and even to the very night when we first broke in upon our rules, he never had the least design of lying with me, that he always had a sincere affection for me, but not the least real inclination to do what he had done. I assured him, I never suspected him, that if I had I should not so easily have yielded to the freedom which brought it on, but that it was all a surprise, and was owing to the accident of our having yielded too far to our mutual inclinations that night. And indeed I have often observed sense, and leave it as a caution to the readers of this story that we ought to be cautious of gratifying our inclinations in loose and lewd freedoms, lest we find our resolutions of virtue fail us in this junction when their assistance should be most necessary. It is true, and I have confessed it before, that from the first hour I began to converse with him, I resolved to let him lie with me if he offered it. But it was because I 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 that he ever expressed 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 bed-fellows. 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 laid, 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 specter 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 in 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 gentlemen, 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 satisfaction 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 all thereabouts, and heard nothing which surprised me, and I began to be very uneasy indeed. I think I may say that for the next fortnight I was near to distracted. It was my particular difficulty that I did not know directly where he was, for I understood at first he was in the lodgings of his wife's mother, but having removed myself to London, I soon found, by the help of the direction I had for writing my letters to him, how to inquire off to him. And there I found that he was at a house in Bloomsbury, whither he had, a little before he fell sick, removed his whole family, and that his wife and wife's mother were in the same house, though the wife was not suffered to know that she was in the same house with her husband. Here I also soon understood that he was at the last extremity, which made me, almost at the last extremity, too, to have a true account. One night I had the curiosity to disguise myself like a servant maid, in a round cap and straw hat, and went to the door as sent by a lady of its neighbourhood, where he lived before, and giving master and mistress's service, I said I was sent to know how Mr. hmm, did, and how he had rested that night. In delivering this message I got the opportunity I desired. Far, speaking with one of the maids, I held a long gossips tale with her, and had all the particulars of his illness which I found was a pleurisy, attended with a cuff and a fever. She told me also who was in the house, and how his wife was, who by her relation they were in some hopes might recover her understanding. But asked the gentleman himself, in short, she told me the doctors said there was very little hopes of him, that in the morning they thought he had been dying, and that he was bought little better then, for they did not expect that he could live over the next night. This was heavy news for me, and I began now to see an end of my prosperity, and to see also that it was very well I had played to good housewife, and secured or served something while he was alive, for that now I had no view of my own living before me. It lay very heavy upon my mind too that I had a son, a fine lovely boy about five years old, and no provision made for it, at least that I knew of. With these considerations, and a sad heart, I went home for that evening, and began to cast with myself how I should live, and in what manner to bestow myself for the residue of my life. You may be sure that I could not rest without inquiring again very quickly what was become of him, and not venturing to go myself. I sent several sham messages, until after a fortnight's waiting longer, I found that there was hopes of his life. Though he was still very ill, then I abated my sending any more to the house, and in some time after I learned in the neighbourhood that he was about house, and then that he was abroad again, I made no doubt then that I should hear soon of him, and began to comfort myself with my circumstances being, as I thought recovered. I waited a week, and two weeks, and with much surprise and amazement I waited near two months and heard nothing, but that, being recovered, he was gone into the country for the air, and for the better recovery after his distemper. After this it was yet two more months, and then I understood he was come to his city house again, but still I heard nothing from him. I had written several letters for him, and directed them as usual, and found two or three of them had been called for, but not the rest. I wrote again in a more pressing manner than ever, and in one of them let him know that I must be forced to wait on him myself, representing my circumstances, the rent of lodgings to pay, and the provision for the child wanting, and my own deplorable conditioned destitute of subsistence for his most solemn engagement to take care of and provide for me. I took a copy of this letter, and finding it lay at the house near a month and was not called for. I found means to have the copy of it put into his own hands at a coffee house, where I had by inquiry found he used to go. This letter forced an answer from him, by which, though I found I was to be abandoned, yet I found he had sent a letter to me some time before, desiring me to go down to the Bath again. Its contents I shall come to presently. It is true that sick beds are the time when such correspondences as these are looked on with different countenances as seen with other eyes than we saw them with, or than they appeared with before. My lover had been at the gates of death, and at the very brink of eternity, and, it seems, had been struck with a due remorse and was sad reflections upon his past life of gallantry and levity, and, among the rest, criminal correspondence with me, which was neither more nor less than a long continued life of adultery, and represented itself as it really was, not as it had been formerly thought by him to be, and he looked upon it now with a just and religious abhorrence. I cannot but observe also and leave it for the direction of my sex in such cases of pleasure that whenever sincere repentance succeeds such a crime as this, there never fails to attend the hatred of the object. And the more the affection might seem to be before, the hatred will be more in proportion. It will always be so. Indeed, it can be no otherwise, for there cannot be a true and sincere abhorrence of the offence, and the love to the cause of it remain. There will, with an abhorrence of the sin, be found the detestation of the fellow sinner. You can't expect no other. I found it so here through good manners and justice in this gentleman, kept him from carrying. It owned to the extreme, but the short history of his part in this affair was thus, he perceived by my last letter and by all the rest which he went for after, that I was not gone to Bath. That his first letter had not come to my hand upon which he writes to me this following. Madam, I am surprised that my letter dated the eighth of last month did not come to your hand. I give you my word it was delivered at your lodgings and to the hands of your maid. I need not to quaint you with what has been my condition for some time past and how, having been at the edge of the grave, I am by the unexpected and undeserved mercy of heaven restored again. In the condition I have been in it cannot be strange to you that our unhappy correspondence had not been the least of the burdens which lay upon my conscience. I need say no more. Those things that must be repented of must also be reformed. I wish you would think of going buck to the bath. I enclose you here a bill for fifty pounds for clearing yourself at your lodgings and carrying you down and hope it will be no surprise to you to add that on this account only and not for any offence given me on your side I can see you no more. I will take due care of the child, leave him where he is or take him with you as you please. I wish you like the reflections that may be to your advantage. I am, etc. I was struck with this letter as with a thousand wounds such as I cannot describe the reproaches of my own conscience were such as I cannot express for I was not blind to my own crime and I reflected that I might with less offence have continued with my brother and lived with him as a wife since there was no crime in our marriage on that scar neither of us knowing it but I never once reflected that I was all this while a married woman a wife to Mr. the linen draper who though he had left me by the necessity of his circumstances had no power to discharge me from the marriage contract which was between us or to give me a legal liberty to marry again so that I had been no less than a whore and an adulteress all this while I then reproached myself for the liberties I had taken and how I had been a snare to this gentleman and that indeed I was principal in the crime that now he was mercifully snatched out of the gulf by a convincing work upon his mind but that I was left as if I was forsaken of God's grace and abandoned by heaven to a continuing in my wickedness under these reflections I continued very pensive and sad for near a month and did not go down to the bath having no inclination to be with the woman whom I was with before lest as I thought she should proct me to some wicked cause of life again as she had done and besides I was very loathed that she should know I was cast off as above and now I was greatly perplexed about my little boy it was death to me to part with a child and yet when I considered the danger of being one time without a maintenance to support him I then resolved to leave him where he was but then I concluded also to be near him myself too that I then might have the satisfaction of seeing him without the care of providing for him I sent my gentleman a short letter therefore that I had obeyed his orders in all things but that of going back to the bath which I could not think of for many reasons that however parting from him was a wound to me that I could never recover yet I was fully satisfied his reflections were just and would be very far from desiring to obstruct his reformation or repentance then I represented my own circumstances to him in the most moving terms that I was able I told him that those unhappy distresses which first moved him to a generous and honest friendship for me would I hope move him to a little concern for me now though the criminal part of our correspondence which I believed neither of us intended to fall into at the time was broken off that I desired to repent as sincerely as he had done but entreated him to put me in some condition that I might not be exposed to the temptations which the devil never fails to excite us to from the frightful prospect of poverty and distress and if he had the least apprehensions of my being troublesome to him I begged he would put me in a posture to go back to my mother in Virginia from which he knew I came and that would put an end to all his fears on that account I concluded that if he would send me fifty pounds more to facilitate my going away I would send him back a general release and would promise never to disturb him with any more importunities unless it was to hear of the well-doing of the child whom if I found my mother living and my circumstances able I would send for to come over with me and take him also effectively off his hands this was indeed all a cheat thus far vis that I had no intention to go to Virginia as the account of my former affairs there may convince anybody of but the business was to get this last fifty pounds off him if possible knowing well enough that it would be the last penny I was ever to expect however the argument I used namely of giving him a general release and never troubling him any more prevailed effectually with him and he sent me a bill for the money by a person who brought with him a general release for me to sign and which I frankly signed and received the money and thus the full sore against my will a final end was put to this affair and here I cannot but reflect upon the unhappy consequence of two great freedoms between persons stated as we were upon the pretense of innocent intentions, love or friendship and the like for the flesh has generally so great a share in these friendships that is great odds but inclination prevails last over the most solemn resolutions and that vice breaks in at the breaches of decency which really innocent friendships ought to preserve with the greatest strictness but I leave the readers of these things to their own just reflections which they will be more able to make effectual than I who soon forgot myself and I'm therefore bought a very indifferent monitor End of section 10