g objects.
Though Sir John's honest expostulation had touched me to the quick, yet
I confess, had I found any of my coterie at home, had I gone to the
opera, had a joyous supper succeeded, all together would have quite
obliterated the late mortifying scene. I should, as I have often done
before, have soon lost all sense of the Stokes's misery, and of my own
crime.'"

"Here," pursued Lady Belfield, "the sweet creature looked so contrite,
that Sir John and I were both deeply affected."

"'You are not accustomed, Sir John,' resumed she, with a faint smile,
'to the office of a confessor, nor I to that of a penitent. But I make
it a test to myself of my own sincerity to tell you the whole truth.

"'I wandered from room to room, fancying I should be more at ease in any
other than that in which I was. I envied the starving tenant of the
meanest garret. I envied Mrs. Stokes herself. Both might have pitied the
pangs which rent my heart as I roamed through the decorated apartments
of our spacious house. In the gayest part of London I felt the
dreariness of a desert. Surrounded with magnificence, I endured a sense
of want and woe, of which a blameless beggar can form no idea.

"'I went into the library: I took up a book which my lord had left on
the table. It was a translation from a Roman classic. I opened it at the
speech of the tragedian to Pompey: '_The time will come that thou shalt
mourn deeply, because thou didst not mourn sooner!_' I was struck to the
heart. 'Shall a pagan,' said I, 'thus forcibly reprove me; and shall I
neglect to search for truth at the fountain?'

"'I knew my lord would not come home from his club till the morning. The
struggle in my soul between principle and pride was severe; but after a
bitter conflict, I resolved to employ the night in writing him a long
letter. In it I ingenuously confessed the whole state of my mind, and
what had occasioned it. I implored his permission for my setting out
next morning for Melbury Castle. I entreated him to prevail on his
excellent aunt, Lady Jane, whom I had so shamefully slighted, to
accompany me. I knew she was a character of that singular class who
would be glad to revenge herself for any ill-treatment by doing me a
service. Her company would be at once a pledge to my lord of the purity
of my intentions, and to myself a security against falling into worse
society. I assured him that I had no safeguard but in flight. An
additional reason which I alleged for