 quitting Marseilles: I meant to offer her every assistance in my power, and take leave of her, I hoped, for life.
I accordingly proceeded to her chamber—but no words can express the surprise and horror that affected me, at seeing

her—Her whole frame was convulsed, and every feature distorted and enlarged. The moment she beheld me, she seemed to acquire new strength, and endeavoured to revile me with as much bitterness, as when she arrived first at Marseilles.
She had, however, no longer the power of raising any passion in me, but pity—I said every thing that was possible to calm her mind; assured her I had never knowingly injured her; and that I had certainly been as much, if not more, imposed on and deceived, by Colonel Walter, than herself.
I then proceeded to relate, with the utmost exactness, the Colonel's whole behaviour, from his first meeting, to his

quitting me, during the recital of which, she wept often; her countenance became more placid and composed; and, when I had finished my story, she asked my pardon, a thousand times, for the injury she had done me, and confessed I was much more to be pitied than herself, on account of my youth and inexperience.
She confessed too, that the formalities of marriage had never passed between them; but shewed me a paper he had given her, by which he had engaged to acknowledge her as his wife, at some future aera. And with regard to the marked attention which he had shewn to me, he assured her he meant nothing more by it, than merely to deceive her mother—and in order to carry on the plot, said he was obliged to spend a few weeks at

Embrun, upon a particular business, and desired her to hold herself in readiness to come off to him there, at a minute's warning, on a summons which he promised to send her from thence.
Matters being thus settled between them, her mind, she said, was quite at ease on his departure—till she heard of my elopement with him, the morning after it happened; which threw her into a state of distraction, for several months; but not hearing from him, all that time, and beginning, at last, to apprehend that her situation would quickly discover her misconduct, and cover her with infamy, she determined to follow him to Embrun; and as she could not suppose that he had ventured to have entered into firmer engagements with me, than he had already

done with her, she considered herself as having a prior right to
