‘Why go, Redmond?’ said my wife.  ’I am happy here, as long as you are kind to me, as you are now.  We can’t appear in London as we ought; the little money you will get will be spent, like all the rest has been.  Let us turn shepherd and shepherdess, and look to our flocks and be content.’  And she took my hand and kissed it; while my mother only said, ’Humph!  I believe she’s at the bottom of it—­the wicked SCHAMER!’

I told my wife she was a fool; bade Mrs. Barry not be uneasy, and was hot upon going:  I would take no denial from either party.  How I was to get the money to go was the question; but that was solved by my good mother, who was always ready to help me on a pinch, and who produced sixty guineas from a stocking.  This was all the ready money that Barry Lyndon, of Castle Lyndon, and married to a fortune of forty thousand a year, could command:  such had been the havoc made in this fine fortune by my own extravagance (as I must confess), but chiefly by my misplaced confidence and the rascality of others.

We did not start in state, you may be sure.  We did not let the country know we were going, or leave notice of adieu with our neighbours.  The famous Mr. Barry Lyndon and his noble wife travelled in a hack-chaise and pair to Waterford, under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and thence took shipping for Bristol, where we arrived quite without accident.  When a man is going to the deuce, how easy and pleasant the journey is!  The thought of the money quite put me in a good humour, and my wife, as she lay on my shoulder in the post-chaise going to London, said it was the happiest ride she had taken since our marriage.

One night we stayed at Reading, whence I despatched a note to my agent at Gray’s Inn, saying I would be with him during the day, and begging him to procure me a lodging, and to hasten the preparations for the loan.  My Lady and I agreed that we would go to France, and wait there for better times; and that night, over our supper, formed a score of plans both for pleasure and retrenchment.  You would have thought it was Darby and Joan together over their supper.  O woman! woman! when I recollect Lady Lyndon’s smiles and blandishments—­how happy she seemed to be on that night! what an air of innocent confidence appeared in her behaviour, and what affectionate names she called me!—­I am lost in wonder at the depth of her hypocrisy.  Who can be surprised that an unsuspecting person like myself should have been a victim to such a consummate deceiver!

We were in London at three o’clock, and half-an-hour before the time appointed our chaise drove to Gray’s Inn.  I easily found out Mr. Tapewell’s apartments—­a gloomy den it was, and in an unlucky hour I entered it!  As we went up the dirty back-stair, lighted by a feeble lamp and the dim sky of a dismal London afternoon, my wife seemed agitated and faint.

‘Redmond,’ said she, as we got up to the door, ’don’t go in:  I am sure there is danger.  There’s time yet; let us go back—­to Ireland—­ anywhere!’ And she put herself before the door, in one of her theatrical attitudes, and took my hand.