“In short, Mr. Harley (for I tire you with a relation, the catastrophe of which you will already have imagined), I fell a prey to his artifices.  He had not been able so thoroughly to convert me, that my conscience was silent on the subject; but he was so assiduous to give repeated proofs of unabated affection, that I hushed its suggestions as they rose.  The world, however, I knew, was not to be silenced; and therefore I took occasion to express my uneasiness to my seducer, and entreat him, as he valued the peace of one to whom he professed such attachment, to remove it by a marriage.  He made excuse from his dependence on the will of his father, but quieted my fears by the promise of endeavouring to win his assent.

“My father had been some days absent on a visit to a dying relation, from whom he had considerable expectations.  I was left at home, with no other company than my books:  my books I found were not now such companions as they used to be; I was restless, melancholy, unsatisfied with myself.  But judge my situation when I received a billet from Mr. Winbrooke informing me, that he had sounded Sir George on the subject we had talked of, and found him so averse to any match so unequal to his own rank and fortune, that he was obliged, with whatever reluctance, to bid adieu to a place, the remembrance of which should ever be dear to him.

“I read this letter a hundred times over.  Alone, helpless, conscious of guilt, and abandoned by every better thought, my mind was one motley scene of terror, confusion, and remorse.  A thousand expedients suggested themselves, and a thousand fears told me they would be vain:  at last, in an agony of despair, I packed up a few clothes, took what money and trinkets were in the house, and set out for London, whither I understood he was gone; pretending to my maid, that I had received letters from my father requiring my immediate attendance.  I had no other companion than a boy, a servant to the man from whom I hired my horses.  I arrived in London within an hour of Mr. Winbrooke, and accidentally alighted at the very inn where he was.

“He started and turned pale when he saw me; but recovered himself in time enough to make many new protestations of regard, and beg me to make myself easy under a disappointment which was equally afflicting to him.  He procured me lodgings, where I slept, or rather endeavoured to sleep, for that night.  Next morning I saw him again, he then mildly observed on the imprudence of my precipitate flight from the country, and proposed my removing to lodgings at another end of the town, to elude the search of my father, till he should fall upon some method of excusing my conduct to him, and reconciling him to my return.  We took a hackney-coach, and drove to the house he mentioned.