and affection to sordid
cares. "It appears to me absurd," she told him, "to waste life in
preparing to live." Not one of the least of her trials was that she was
at this time often forced to see a man who was Imlay's friend or partner
in Paris, and who seems to have aided and abetted him in his
speculations. He tormented her with accounts of new enterprises, and she
complained very bitterly of him. "----, I know, urges you to stay," she
wrote in one of her first letters of expostulation, "and is continually
branching out into new projects because he has the idle desire to amass a
large fortune, rather, an immense one, merely to have the credit of
having made it. But we who are governed by other motives ought not to be
led on by him; when we meet we will discuss this subject." For a little
while she tried to believe that her doubts had no substantial basis, but
were the result of her solitude. In the same letter she said:--

"... I will only tell you that I long to see you, and, being at
peace with you, I shall be hurt, rather than made angry, by delays.
Having suffered so much in life, do not be surprised if I
sometimes, when left to myself, grow gloomy and suppose that it was
all a dream, and that my happiness is not to last. I say happiness,
because remembrance retrenches all the dark shades of the picture."

But by degrees the dark shades increased until they had completely
blotted out the light made by the past. Imlay's letters were fewer and
shorter, more taken up with business, and less concerned with her. Ought
she to endure his indifference, or ought she to separate from him
forever? was the question which now tortured her. She had tasted the
higher pleasures, and the present pain was intense in proportion. Her
letters became mournful as dirges.

On the 30th of December she wrote:--

"Should you receive three or four of the letters at once which I
have written lately, do not think of Sir John Brute, for I do not
mean to wife you, I only take advantage of every occasion, that one
out of three of my epistles may reach your hands, and inform you
that I am not of ----'s opinion, who talks till he makes me angry
of the necessity of your staying two or three months longer. I do
not like this life of continual inquietude, and, _entre nous_, I am
determined to try to earn some money here myself, in order to
convince you that, if you choose to