o much of commerce. They were, in a
word, _bourgeois_. But her husband and child were all the society she
wanted. With them any wilderness would have been a paradise. Her
affection increased with time, and Imlay, though discovered not to be a
demigod, grew ever dearer to her. Her love for her child, which she
confessed was at first the effect of a sense of duty, developed soon into
a deep and tender feeling. With Imlay's wants to attend to, the little
Fanny, at one time ill with small-pox, to nurse, and her book on the
Revolution to write, the weeks and months passed quickly and happily. In
August Imlay was summoned to Paris, and at once the sky of her paradise
was overcast. She wrote to him,--

"You too have somehow clung round my heart. I found I could not eat
my dinner in the great room, and when I took up the large knife to
carve for myself, tears rushed into my eyes. Do not, however,
suppose that I am melancholy, for, when you are from me, I not only
wonder how I can find fault with you, but how I can doubt your
affection."

CHAPTER IX.

IMLAY'S DESERTION.

1794-1795.

Unfortunately, as a rule, the traveller on life's journey has but as
short a time to stay in the pleasant green resting-places, as the
wanderer through the desert. In September Mary followed Imlay to Paris.
But the gates of her Eden were forever barred. Before the end of the
month he had bidden her farewell and had gone to London. Against the
fascination of money-making, her charms had little chance. His
estrangement dates from this separation. When Mary met him again, he had
forgotten love and honor, and had virtually deserted her. While her
affection became stronger, his weakened until finally it perished
altogether.

Her confidence in him, however, was confirmed by the months spent at
Havre, and she little dreamed his departure was the prelude to their
final parting. For a time she was lighter-hearted than she had ever
before been while he was away. The memory of her late happiness reassured
her. Her little girl was an unceasing source of joy, and she never tired
of writing to Imlay about her. Her maternal tenderness overflows in her
letters:--

"... You will want to be told over and over again," she said in
one of them, not doubting his interest to be as great as her, "that
our little Hercules is quite recovered.

"Besides looking at me, there are three other things which deligh