well and eloquently in my behalf--insisting on the
improbability that a person of my habits and position would be wilfully
mixed up with a transaction like that of which it appeared I was
suspected--adding, that as he was fully convinced of my innocence, he was
ready to enter into any surety with respect to my appearance at any time
to answer anything which might be laid to my charge. This last
observation had particular effect, and as he was a person universally
respected, both for his skill in his profession and his general
demeanour, people began to think that a person in whom he took an
interest could scarcely be concerned in anything criminal, and though my
friend the magistrate--I call him so ironically--made two or three
demurs, it was at last agreed between him and his brethren of the bench,
that, for the present, I should be merely called upon to enter into my
own recognizance for the sum of two hundred pounds, to appear whenever it
should be deemed requisite to enter into any farther investigation of the
matter.

'So I was permitted to depart from the tribunal of petty justice without
handcuffs, and uncollared by a constable; but people looked coldly and
suspiciously upon me. The first thing I did was to hasten to the house
of my beloved, in order to inform her of every circumstance attending the
transaction. I found her, but how? A malicious female individual had
hurried to her with a distorted tale, to the effect that I had been taken
up as an utterer of forged notes; that an immense number had been found
in my possession; that I was already committed, and that probably I
should be executed. My affianced one tenderly loved me, and her
constitution was delicate; fit succeeded fit, she broke a blood-vessel,
and I found her deluged in blood; the surgeon had just been sent for; he
came and afforded her every possible relief. I was distracted; he bade
me have hope, but I observed he looked very grave.

'By the skill of the surgeon, the poor girl was saved in the first
instance from the arms of death, and for a few weeks she appeared to be
rapidly recovering; by degrees, however, she became melancholy; a worm
preyed upon her spirit; a slow fever took possession of her frame. I
subsequently learned that the same malicious female, who had first
carried to her an exaggerated account of the affair, and who was a
distant relative of her own, frequently visited her, and did all in her
power to excite her fears