re determined moment. Do not insult me by
saying that 'our being together is paramount to every other
consideration!' Were it, you would not be running after a bubble,
at the expense of my peace of mind.

"Perhaps this is the last letter you will ever receive from me."

Grief sometimes makes men strong. Mary's stimulated her into a
determination to break her connection with Imlay, and to live for her
child alone. She would remain in Paris and superintend Fanny's education.
She had already been able to look out for herself; there was no reason
why she should not do it again. Until she settled upon the means of
support to be adopted, she would borrow money from her friends. Anything
was better than to live at Imlay's expense. As for him, such a course
would probably be a relief, and certainly it would do him no harm. "As I
never concealed the nature of my connection with you," she wrote him,
"your reputation will not suffer." But her plans, for some reason, did
not meet with his approval. He was tired of her, and yet he seems to have
been ashamed to confess his inconstancy. At one moment he wrote that he
was coming to Paris; at the next he bade her meet him in London. But no
mention was made of the farm in America. The excitement of commerce
proved more alluring than the peace of country life. His shilly-shallying
unnerved Mary; positive desertion would have been easier to bear. On
February 19 she wrote him:--

"When I first received your letter putting off your return to an
indefinite time, I felt so hurt that I knew not what I wrote. I am
now calmer, though it was not the kind of wound over which time has
the quickest effect; on the contrary, the more I think, the sadder
I grow. Society fatigues me inexpressibly; so much so that, finding
fault with every one, I have only reason enough to discover that
the fault is in myself. My child alone interests me, and but for
her I should not take any pains to recover my health."

The child was now the strongest bond of union between them. For her sake
she felt the necessity of continuing to live with Imlay as long as
possible, though his love was dead. Therefore, when he wrote definitely
that he would like her to come to him, since he could not leave his
business to go to her, she relinquished her intentions of remaining alone
in France with Fanny, and set out at once for London. She could hardly
have passed through H