rning visit, these were not exhausting
encounters, so that we lay comparatively in fallow, till the return of
the Benson and Egerton, when they and the lovely Frankland taxed us to
the utmost twice or thrice a week.

Thus time progressed. The Frankland had been a widow for nearly two
years when she proposed to travel for two or three years without
returning in the interval to England. She wished me to accompany her,
and made a most surprising and unexpected proposition to me.

She said, "Charlie, my own darling, I love you more dearly than ever.
It is true I am considerably older than you, but you are now
twenty-five years of age, and, therefore, a full-grown man. I wish to
endow you with all my great wealth, and I offer you my hand in
marriage. Do not suppose I want to monopolize this dear prick." (We
were in bed naked, and had just concluded a most exquisite fuck.) "No,
with our love of variety we will still seek it out, but as husband and
wife we can do so with perfect ease and safety; whereas if not married
and travelling together we should be compromised at every city we stop
at. What say you, my darling Charlie?" Here she threw herself on my
bosom with loving eyes upraised to mine.

"Say, beloved of my soul! Why, look how the very idea has raised my
prick to instant life. If anything in the world could delight me more
than another it is your generous noble offer. To dedicate my life to
the woman I love more than any other is a joy greater than I can
express. I thank you from my soul, adorable creature as you are. Oh!
come to my arms as my future wife and let us revel in the glorious
idea."

Such was the way in which this happiness was conferred on me, which
endured for long years, although, alas, my widowed heart now all
hopelessly ever regrets that most lovable of women and best of wives.
Oh, what happiness it was as long as I possessed her.

We were married in a few days after this by special license.

The Benson and the Egerton were present and Harry Dale was my best man.
We adjourned to her house, now ours, to breakfast. They also stayed to
dinner and slept at our house, that we might celebrate our marriage
with a parting orgy, for we announced to our friends that in marrying,
so far from renouncing our orgies, we meant our union to promote ever
varying ones, and that on our return we would renew the exquisite ones
we had so often enjoyed with them.

Harry and I did all we could on that happy occasion