have acted otherwise?

This confession, though it did not in the least diminish her landlady's
regard for her, worked indirectly in a most disastrous way. Whether
driven by necessity, or emboldened by the belief that his lodgers were
at his mercy, the clerk soon afterward approached Knight for a small
loan; and, obtaining it, repeated the request on several other
occasions, until he had borrowed in all about twelve pounds. Payment he
postponed on one pretext and another, until the lender finally lost all
patience and informed him roundly that he must settle or stand suit.
Then followed an interchange of words that in an instant terminated the
pleasant connection of the preceding months. Parsons was described as
"an impudent scoundrel who would be taught what honesty meant." Parsons
described himself as "knowing what honesty meant full well, and needing
no lessons from a fugitive from justice." White with rage, Knight
bundled his belongings together, called a hackney coach, and within the
hour had shaken the dust of Cock Lane from his feet, finding new
lodgings in Clerkenwell and at once haling his whilom landlord to the
debtors' court.

A little time, and all else was forgotten in the serious illness of his
beloved Fanny. At first the physician declared that the malady would
prove slight; but she herself seemed to feel that she was doomed. "Send
for a lawyer," she urged; "I want to make my will. It is little enough I
have, God knows; but I wish to be sure you will get it all, dear
husband."

To humor her, the will was drawn, and now it developed that the disease
which had attacked her was smallpox in its worst form. No need to dwell
on the fearful hours that followed, the fond farewells, the lapsing into
a merciful unconsciousness, the death. They buried her in the vaults of
St. John's Clerkenwell, and from her tomb her husband came forth to give
battle to the relatives who, shunning her while alive, did not disdain
to seek possession of the small legacy she had left him. In this they
failed, but scarcely had the smoke of the legal canonading cleared away,
before he was called upon to meet a new issue so unexpected and so
mysterious that history affords no stranger sequel to tale of love.

The first intimation of its coming and of its nature was revealed to
him, as to the public generally, by a brief paragraph printed in a mid
January, 1762, issue of _The London Ledger_:

"For some time past a great knocking havin