“I felt my heart swell at her words; I would have been angry if I could, but I was in that stupid state which is not easily awakened to anger:  when I would have chid her the reproof stuck in my throat; I could only weep!

“Her want of respect increased, as I had not spirit to assert it.  My work was now rather imposed than offered, and I became a drudge for the bread I eat:  but my dependence and servility grew in proportion, and I was now in a situation which could not make any extraordinary exertions to disengage itself from either—­I found myself with child.

“At last the wretch, who had thus trained me to destruction, hinted the purpose for which those means had been used.  I discovered her to be an artful procuress for the pleasures of those who are men of decency to the world in the midst of debauchery.

“I roused every spark of courage within me at the horrid proposal.  She treated my passion at first somewhat mildly, but when I continued to exert it she resented it with insult, and told me plainly that if I did not soon comply with her desires I should pay her every farthing I owed, or rot in a jail for life.  I trembled at the thought; still, however, I resisted her importunities, and she put her threats in execution.  I was conveyed to prison, weak from my condition, weaker from that struggle of grief and misery which for some time I had suffered.  A miscarriage was the consequence.

“Amidst all the horrors of such a state, surrounded with wretches totally callous, lost alike to humanity and to shame, think, Mr. Harley, think what I endured; nor wonder that I at last yielded to the solicitations of that miscreant I had seen at her house, and sunk to the prostitution which he tempted.  But that was happiness compared to what I have suffered since.  He soon abandoned me to the common use of the town, and I was cast among those miserable beings in whose society I have since remained.

“Oh! did the daughters of virtue know our sufferings; did they see our hearts torn with anguish amidst the affectation of gaiety which our faces are obliged to assume! our bodies tortured by disease, our minds with that consciousness which they cannot lose!  Did they know, did they think of this, Mr. Harley!  Their censures are just, but their pity perhaps might spare the wretches whom their justice should condemn.

“Last night, but for an exertion of benevolence which the infection of our infamy prevents even in the humane, had I been thrust out from this miserable place which misfortune has yet left me; exposed to the brutal insults of drunkenness, or dragged by that justice which I could not bribe, to the punishment which may correct, but, alas! can never amend the abandoned objects of its terrors.  From that, Mr. Harley, your goodness has relieved me.”

He beckoned with his hand:  he would have stopped the mention of his favours; but he could not speak, had it been to beg a diadem.