as gone.

I will not speak of the suffering this scene cost me,--a misery, I am
free to declare, less proceeding from my dread of his resentment than
from the thought that one of the very few with whom I had ever lived on
terms approaching friendship had now become a declared and bitter enemy.
Oh for the hollowness of such attachments! The bonds which bind men to
evil are the deadliest snares that beset us; and thus the very qualities
which seem our best and purest, are among the weakest and the worst of
our depraved natures.

To add to my discomfiture, Hanchett was obliged to go over to London in
some case before the House of Lords, and my cause was intrusted to
the second counsel, one with whom I had little intercourse, and few
opportunities of knowing. Ysaffich's defection, too, threw a great gloom
over all my supporters. His readiness in every difficulty was not less
remarkable than his unwearied and untiring energy. He was, in fact, the
bond of union between all the parties, stimulating, encouraging,
and cheering them on. Even they who were least disposed towards him
personally, avowed that his loss was irreparable; and some, taking a
still graver view of the matter, owned their fears that he might seek
service with the enemy.

I cannot tell the relief I experienced on hearing that he had sailed
from Ireland the very night of our quarrel; and, from the observations
he had dropped, it was believed with the intention of going abroad.

As the day fixed for the trial drew nigh, public curiosity rose to the
very highest degree. The real nature of the claim to be set up was no
longer a secret, and the case became the town talk of every club and
society of the capital. Curtis had long ceased to be popular with any
party. His dissolute life had thrown a disrepute upon those who sided
with him; and the newspapers, almost without an exception, inclined
towards my side. There is, perhaps, something too that savors of
generosity in such cases, and disposes many to favor what they feel to
be the weaker party. I am sure I had reason to experience much of this
kind of sympathy, nor do I think of it even now without gratitude.

Early as it was when I prepared to leave my hotel, I found a
considerable crowd had assembled in the street without, curious to see
one whose story had attracted so much popular notice. They were mostly
of the lower classes, but I observed that a knot of gentlemen had
gathered on the steps of an adjoin