 and bade him good night; and he walked quietly away.



LOUISA CLIFTON TO MRS. WENBOURNE.
Grosvenor Street.
DEAR MADAM,
AS I have taken upon myself the painful duty of informing you of all that passes, relative to this unhappy affair, it becomes me to be punctual. It is afflicting to own that our agitation and distress, instead of abating, are increased.

Finding it impossible to gain a sight of my brother, I determined to attempt to question his valet. Mr. Webb received my instructions accordingly, watched him to some distance from the house, and delivered a message from me, that if he would come to me I would present him with ten guineas.
He made no hesitation, but followed Mr. Webb immediately.
Either he is very artful or very ignorant of this affair. One circumstance excepted, he appears to know nothing.
I promised him any reward, any sum he should himself name, if he could but give us such information as might lead to the recovery of our lost friends: but he protested very solemnly he had none to give; except that he owns having

been employed, by his master, to inveigle the lad away, who wrote the anonymous letter, and whom Mr. Clifton, by practising on the lad's credulity and gratitude, sent to France.
The valet indeed acknowledges his master is exceedingly disturbed in mind; that he does not sleep, nor even go to bed, except sometimes tossing himself on it with his clothes on, and almost instantly rising again; and that he has sent for his attorney, to make his will.
I will not endeavour to paint my sensations at hearing this account. I will only add that another incident has happened, which gives them additional acuteness.
I believe, madam, you have heard both my brother and my Anna speak of

and describe a young French nobleman, who paid his addresses to her, and who was the occasion of the rash leap into the lake, by which Mr. Clifton endangered his life? This gentleman, Count de Beaunoir, is arrived in London; and has this morning paid a visit to Sir Arthur St. Ives.
He enquired first and eagerly after my friend; with whom, like all who know her, he is in raptures. Sir Arthur, forgetting his character, and the apparently rodomontade but to him very serious manner in which he had declared himself her champion, told him the whole story, as far as it is known to us; not omitting to mention Mr. Clifton as the person on whom all our suspicions

fell, and relating to
