My way lay through the city. I had scarcely entered it
when I was seized with a general sensation of sickness.
Every object grew dim, and swam before my sight. It
was with difficulty I prevented myself from sinking to the
bottom of the carriage. I ordered myself to be carried to
Mrs. Baynton's, in hope that an interval of repose would invigorate
and refresh me. My distracted thoughts would

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

allow me but little rest. Growing somewhat better in the
afternoon, I resumed my journey.

My contemplations were limited to a few objects. I regarded
my success, in the purpose which I had in view, as
considerably doubtful. I depended, in some degree, on the
suggestions of the moment, and on the materials which
Pleyel himself should furnish me. When I reflected on the
nature of the accusation, I burned with disdain. Would
not truth, and the consciousness of innocence, render me
triumphant? Should I not cast from me, with irresistible
force, such atrocious imputations?

What an entire and mournful change has been effected
in a few hours! The gulf that separates man from insects
is not wider than that which severs the polluted from the
chaste among women. Yesterday and to day I am the same.
There is a degree of depravity to which it is impossible for
me to sink; yet, in the apprehension of another, my ancient
and intimate associate, the perpetual witness of my actions,
and partaker of my thoughts, I had ceased to be the same.
My integrity was tarnished and withered in his eyes. I
was the colleague of a murderer, and the paramour of a
thief!

His opinion was not destitute of evidence; yet what
proofs could reasonably avail to establish an opinion like
this? If the sentiments corresponded not with the voice that
was heard, the evidence was deficient; but this want of
correspondence would have been supposed by me if I had
been the auditor and Pleyel the criminal. But mimicry
might still more plausibly have been employed to explain
the scene. Alas! it is the fate of Clara Wieland to fall
into the hands of a precipitate and inexorable judge.

But what, O man of mischief! is the tendency of thy
thoughts? Frustrated in thy first design, thou wilt not forego
the immolation of thy victim. To exterminate my reputation
was all that remained to thee, and this my guardian has
permitted. To dispossess Pleyel of this prejudice may be
impossible; but if that be effected, it cannot be supposed
that thy wiles are exhausted; thy cunning will discover innumerable
avenues to the accomplishment of thy malignant
purpose.

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Why should I enter the lists against thee? Would to
heaven I could disarm thy vengeance by my deprecations!

When I think of all the resources with which nature and
education have supplied thee; that thy form is a combination
of steely fibres and organs of exquisite ductility and
boundless compass, actuated by an intelligence gifted with
infinite endowments, and comprehending all knowledge, I
perceive that my doom is fixed. What obstacle will be
able to divert thy zeal or repel thy efforts? That being
who has hitherto protected me has borne testimony to the
formidableness of thy attempts, since nothing less than supernatural
interference could check thy career.

Musing on these thoughts, I arrived, towards the close of
the day, at Pleyel's house. A month before, I had traversed
the same path; but how different were my sensations!
Now I was seeking the presence of one who regarded me
as the most degenerate of human kind. I was to plead the
cause of my innocence, against witnesses the most explicit
and unerring, of those which support the fabric of human
knowledge. The nearer I approached the crisis, the more
did my confidence decay. When the chaise stopped at the
door, my strength refused to support me, and I threw myself
into the arms of an ancient female domestic. I had
not courage to inquire whether her master was at home. I
was tormented with fears that the projected journey was already
undertaken. These fears were removed, by her
asking me whether she should call her young master, who
had just gone into his own room. I was somewhat revived
by this intelligence, and resolved immediately to seek him
there.

In my confusion of mind, I neglected to knock at the
door, but entered his apartment without previous notice.
This abruptness was altogether involuntary. Absorbed in
reflections of such unspeakable moment, I had no leisure
to heed the niceties of punctilio. I discovered him standing
with his back towards the entrance. A small trunk, with
its lid raised, was before him, in which it seemed as if he
had been busy in packing his clothes. The moment of my
entrance, he was employed in gazing at something which
he held in his hand.

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

I imagined that I fully comprehended this scene. The
image which he held before him, and by which his attention
was so deeply engaged, I doubted not to be my own.
These preparations for his journey, the cause to which it
was to be imputed, the hopelessness of success in the undertaken
on which I had entered, rushed at once upon my
feelings, and dissolved me into a flood of tears.

Startled by this sound, he dropped the lid of the trunk
and turned. The solemn sadness that previously overspread
his countenance, gave sudden way to an attitude and look
of the most vehement astonishment. Perceiving me unaable
to uphold myself, he stepped towards me without
speaking, and supported me by his arm. The kindness of
this action called forth a new effusion from my eyes.
Weeping was a solace to which, at that time, I had not
grown familiar, and which, therefore, was peculiarly delicious.
Indignation was no longer to be read in the features
of my friend. They were pregnant with a mixture
of wonder and pity. Their expression was easily interpreted.
This visit, and these tears, were tokens of my
penitence. The wretch whom he had stigmatized as incurably
and obdurately wicked, now shewed herself susceptible
of remorse, and had come to confess her guilt.

This persuasion had no tendency to comfort me. It only
shewed me, with new evidence, the difficulty of the task
which I had assigned myself. We were mutually silent. I
had less power and less inclination than ever to speak. I
extricated myself from his hold, and threw myself on a
sofa. He placed himself by my side, and appeared to
wait with impatience and anxiety for some beginning of the
conversation. What could I say? If my mind had suggested
any thing suitable to the occasion, my utterance was
suffocated by tears.

Frequently he attempted to speak, but seemed deterred
by some degree of uncertainty as to the true nature of the
scene. At length, in faltering accents he spoke.

“My friend! would to heaven I were still permitted to
call you by that name. The image that I once adored existed
only in my fancy; but though I cannot hope to see it
realized, you may not be totally insensible to the horrors of

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

that gulf into which you are about to plunge. What heart
is forever exempt from the goadings of compunction and
the influx of laudable propensities?

“I thought you accomplished and wise beyond the rest
of women. Not a sentiment you uttered, not a look you
assumed, that were not, in my apprehension, fraught with
the sublimities of rectitude and the illuminations of genius.
Deceit has some bounds. Your education could not be
without influence. A vigorous understanding cannot be
utterly devoid of virtue; but you could not counterfeit the
powers of invention and reasoning. I was rash in my invectives.
I will not, but with life, relinquish all hopes
of you. I will shut out every proof that would tell me that
your heart is incurably diseased.

“You come to restore me once more to happiness; to
convince me that you have torn her mask from vice, and
feel nothing but abhorrence for the part you have hitherto
acted.”

At these words my equanimity forsook me. For a moment
I forgot the evidence from which Pleyel's opinions
were derived, the benevolence of his remonstrances, and
the grief which his accents bespoke; I was filled with indignation
and horror at charges so black; I shrunk back
and darted at him a look of disdain and anger. My passion
supplied me with words.

“What detestable infatuation was it that led me hither!
Why do I patiently endure these horrible insults! My offences
exist only in your own distempered imagination;
you are leagued with the traitor who assailed my life; you
have vowed the destruction of my peace and honor. I deserve
infamy for listening to calumnies so base!”

These words were heard by Pleyel without visible resentment.
His countenance relapsed into its former gloom;
but he did not even look at me. The ideas which had
given place to my angry emotions returned, and once more
melted me into tears. “O!” I exclaimed, in a voice broken
by sobs, “what a task is mine!” Compelled to hearken
to charges which I feel to be false, but which I know
to be believed by him that utters them; believed too not

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without evidence, which, though fallacious, is not unplausible.

“I came hither not to confess, but to vindicate. I know
the source of your opinions. Wieland has informed
me on what your suspicions are built. These suspicions
are fostered by you as certainties; the tenor of my life, of
all my conversations and letters, affords me no security;
every sentiment that my tongue and my pen have uttered,
bear testimony to the rectitude of my mind; but this testimony
is rejected. I am condemned as brutally profligate;
I am classed with the stupidly and sordidly wicked.

“And where are the proofs that must justify so foul and
so improbable an accusation? You have overheard a midnight
conference. Voices have saluted your ear, in which
you imagine yourself to have recognised mine, and that of
a detected villain. The sentiments expressed were not allowed
to outweigh the casual or concerted resemblance of
voice. Sentiments the reverse of all those whose influence
my former life had attested, denoting a mind polluted by
grovelling vices, and entering into compact with that of a
thief and a murderer. The nature of these sentiments did
not enable you to detect the cheat, did not suggest to you
the possibility that my voice had been counterfeited by
another.

“You were precipitate and prone to condemn. Instead
of rushing on the impostors, and comparing the evidence of
sight with that of hearing, you stood aloof, or you fled.
My innocence would not now have stood in need of vindication,
if this conduct had been pursued. That you did
not pursue it, your present thoughts incontestably prove.
Yet this conduct might surely have been expected from
Pleyel. That he would not hastily impute the blackest of
crimes, that he would not couple my name with infamy, and
cover me with ruin for inadequate or slight reasons, might
reasonably have been expected.” The sobs which convulsed
my bosom, would not suffer me to proceed.

Pleyel was for a moment affected. He looked at me
with some expression of doubt; but this quickly gave place
to a mournful solemnity. He fixed his eyes on the floor as
in reverie, and spoke;

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

“Two hours hence I am gone. Shall I carry away with
me the sorrow that is now my guest? or shall that sorrow
be accumulated tenfold? What is she that is now before
me? Shall every hour supply me with new proofs of a
wickedness beyond example? Already I deem her the
most abandoned and detestable of human creatures. Her
coming and her tears imparted a gleam of hope, but that
gleam has vanished.”

He now fixed his eyes upon me, and every muscle in his
face trembled. His tone was hollow and terrible—“Thou
knowest that I was a witness of your interview, yet thou
comest hither to upbraid me for injustice! Thou canst look
me in the face and say that I am deceived!—An inscrutable
Providence has fashioned thee for some end. Thou
wilt live, no doubt, to fulfil the purposes of thy Maker, if
he repent not of his workmanship, and send not his vengeance
to exterminate thee, ere the measure of thy days be
full. Surely nothing in the shape of man can vie with
thee!

“But I thought I had stifled this fury. I am not constituted
thy judge. My office is to pity and amend, and not
to punish and revile. I deemed myself exempt from all
tempestuous passions. I had almost persuaded myself to
weep over thy fall; but I am frail as dust, and mutable as
water; I am calm, I am compassionate only in thy absence.
Make this house, this room, thy abode as long as thou wilt,
but forgive me if I prefer solitude for the short time during
which I shall stay.” Saying this, he motioned as if to leave
the apartment.

The stormy passions of this man affected me by sympathy.
I ceased to weep. I was motionless and speechless
with agony. I sat with my hands clasped, mutely gazing
after him as he withdrew. I desired to detain him, but was
unable to make any effort for that purpose, till he had
passed out of the room. I then uttered an involuntary and
piercing cry—“Pleyel! Art thou gone? Gone forever?”

At this summons he hastily returned. He beheld me
wild, pale, gasping for breath, and my head already sinking
on my bosom. A painful dizziness seized me, and I fainted
away.

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When I recovered, I found myself stretched on a bed in
the outer apartment, and Pleyel, with two female servants
standing beside it. All the fury and scorn, which the countenance
of the former lately expressed, had now disappeared,
and was succeeded by the most tender anxiety. As
soon as he perceived that my senses were returned to me,
he clasped his hands, and exclaimed, “God be thanked!
you are once more alive. I had almost despaired of your
recovery. I fear I have been precipitate and unjust. My
senses must have been the victims of some inexplicable and
momentary frenzy. Forgive me, I beseech you, forgive my
reproaches. I would purchase conviction of your purity,
at the price of my existence here and hereafter.”

He once more, in a tone of the most fervent tenderness,
besought me to be composed, and then left me to the care
of the women.