banish all
remembrance of her former lover I firmly believe. The letter acquainting
him with the breach of faith which her miserable destiny seemed to
render inevitable, had never reached him, and happily, alas! how happily
for him, his last earthly thoughts were permitted to rest on Theresa, as
his beloved and affianced wife. I am persuaded that had he returned
in safety to his native country, she would have avoided his society as
studiously as she did that of the king; and that had she been spared the
blow which deprived her of reason, her dutiful regard, and in time her
devoted affection, would have been mine as firmly, as through the vows
which gave them to my hopes and been untainted by any former passion.
As it was, we were both victims. I, to her misfortunes--she through the
brutality of the king.

"It appeared to me that on our return to court after our ill-fated
union, the king had for some time refrained from his former insulting
importunities; and had merely distressed Lady Greville by indulging in
a mockery of respectful deference, which exposed her to the ridicule
of those around her who could not fail to observe his change of manner.
Perceiving by my unconstrained expressions of grateful acknowledgment
for his furtherance of my marriage with Theresa that she had kept
his secret, and incapable of appreciating that purity of mind, which
rendered such an avowal difficult, even to her husband; and that
prudence which foresaw the evils resulting to both from such a
disclosure, he drew false inferences from her discretion, and gradually
resumed his former levities. Nor was this the only evil with which she
had now to contend. Some malicious enemy had profited by her absences to
poison the mind of the queen, with jealous suspicions of her favourite,
and to inspire her with belief, that Miss Marchmont's propriety
of demeanour in public, had only been a successful mask of private
indiscretion; and that Charles had not been an unsuccessful lover.

"Unwilling to confide to me the difficulties by which she was assailed,
unable alone to steer among the rocks that impeded her course, Theresa
at length adopted the bold measure of confiding her whole tale to her
royal mistress; whose knowledge of the king's infidelities was already
too accurate to admit of an increase of affliction from this new proof;
and on receiving a letter from the avowed friend of her husband--the
grateful patron of her dead father--the august Fat