Besides, it must be confessed, there was another circumstance which was almost as fatal to Herbert’s character in England as his loose and heretical opinions.  The travelling English, during their visits to Geneva, found out that their countryman solaced or enlivened his solitude by unhallowed ties.  It is a habit to which very young men, who are separated from or deserted by their wives, occasionally have recourse.  Wrong, no doubt, as most things are, but it is to be hoped venial; at least in the case of any man who is not also an atheist.  This unfortunate mistress of Herbert was magnified into a seraglio; the most extraordinary tales of the voluptuous life of one who generally at his studies out-watched the stars, were rife in English society; and

  Hoary marquises and stripling dukes,

who were either protecting opera dancers, or, still worse, making love to their neighbours’ wives, either looked grave when the name of Herbert was mentioned in female society, or affectedly confused, as if they could a tale unfold, were they not convinced that the sense of propriety among all present was infinitely superior to their sense of curiosity.

The only person to whom Herbert communicated in England was Doctor Masham.  He wrote to him immediately on his establishment at Geneva, in a calm yet sincere and serious tone, as if it were useless to dwell too fully on the past.  Yet he declared, although now that it was all over he avowed his joy at the interposition of his destiny, and the opportunity which he at length possessed of pursuing the career for which he was adapted, that he had to his knowledge given his wife no cause of offence which could authorise her conduct.  As for his daughter, he said he should not be so cruel as to tear her from her mother’s breast; though, if anything could induce him to such behaviour, it would be the malignant and ungenerous menace of his wife’s relatives, that they would oppose his preferred claim to the guardianship of his child, on the plea of his immoral life and atheistical opinions.  With reference to pecuniary arrangements, as his chief seat was entailed on male heirs, he proposed that his wife should take up her abode at Cherbury, an estate which had been settled on her and her children at her marriage, and which, therefore, would descend to Venetia.  Finally, he expressed his satisfaction that the neighbourhood of Marringhurst would permit his good and still faithful friend to cultivate the society and guard over the welfare of his wife and daughter.

During the first ten years of Herbert’s exile, for such indeed it might be considered, the Doctor maintained with him a rare yet regular correspondence; but after that time a public event occurred, and a revolution took place in Herbert’s life which terminated all communication between them; a termination occasioned, however, by such a simultaneous conviction of its absolute necessity, that it was not attended by any of those painful communications which are too often the harrowing forerunners of a formal disruption of ancient ties.