Necessity,
however, soon overcame my modesty or my pride, and I applied to him by a
letter, but had no answer. I writ in terms more pressing, but without
effect. I then sent an agent to inquire after him, who informed me, that
he had quitted his house, and was gone with his family to reside for
some time on his estate in Ireland.
However shocked at this abrupt departure, I was yet unwilling to believe
that he could wholly abandon me, and therefore, by the sale of my
clothes, I supported myself, expecting that every post would bring me
relief. Thus I passed seven months between hope and dejection, in a
gradual approach to poverty and distress, emaciated with discontent, and
bewildered with uncertainty. At last my landlady, after many hints of
the necessity of a new lover, took the opportunity of my absence to
search my boxes, and missing some of my apparel, seized the remainder
for rent, and led me to the door.
To remonstrate against legal cruelty, was vain; to supplicate obdurate
brutality, was hopeless. I went away I knew not whither, and wandered
about without any settled purpose, unacquainted with the usual
expedients of misery, unqualified for laborious offices, afraid to meet
an eye that had seen me before, and hopeless of relief from those who
were strangers to my former condition.
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