 have ever
known any man but Charles, I would have spit in his face; or had I been offer'd
infinitely a greater sum of money than that I saw paid for me, I had spurn'd the
proposal in cold blood. But our virtues and our vices depend too much on our
circumstances; unexpectedly beset as I was, betray'd by a mind weakened by a
long severe affliction, and stunn'd with the terrors of a jail, my defeat will
appear the more excusable, since I certainly was not present at, or a party in
any sense, to it. However, as the first enjoyment is decisive, and he was now
over the bar, I thought I had no longer a right to refuse the caresses of one
that had got that advantage over me, no matter how obtain'd; conforming myself
then to this maxim, I consider'd myself as so much in his power that I endur'd
his kisses and embraces without affecting struggles or anger; not that they, as
yet, gave me any pleasure, or prevail'd over the aversion of my soul to give
myself up to any sensation of that sort; what I suffer'd, I suffer'd out of a
kind of gratitude, and as a matter of course after what had pass'd.
    He was, however, so regardful as not to attempt the renewal of those
extremities which had thrown me, just before, into such violent agitations; but,
now secure of possession, contented himself with bringing me to temper by
degrees, and waiting at the hand of time for those fruits of generosity and
courtship which he since often reproach'd himself with having gather'd much too
green, when, yielding to the invitations of my inability to resist him, and
overborne by desires, he had wreak'd his passion on a mere lifeless, spiritless
body dead to all purposes of joy, since, taking none, it ought to be suppos'd
incapable of giving any. This is, however, certain; my heart never thoroughly
forgave him the manner in which I had fallen to him, although, in point of
interest, I had reason to be pleas'd that he found, in my person, wherewithal to
keep him from leaving me as easily as he had gained me.
    The evening was, in the mean time, so far advanc'd, that the maid came in to
lay the cloth for supper, when I understood, with joy, that my landlady, whose
sight was present poison to me, was
