“'Of whom do you speak?'
“'Of him—of my beloved—my bethrothed—of Percy, my own Percy,—' said she with frantic violence.
“Helen—even then, heart-struck as I was, I could not but pity the unfortunate being whose very apprehensions were thus agonizing. I dared not answer her—I dared not summon assistance, lest she should betray herself to others as she had done to her husband; for she had lost all self-command. I attempted to pacify her by an indefinite reply to her inquiries, but in vain. 'Do not deceive me,' said she, 'Greville, you were ever good and generous; tell me did he know all, did he curse me, did he seek his death?
“It occurred to me that the letter which I held in my hand might be from—from her dead lover; and with a sensation of loathing, I gave it to her. She tore it open, and a lock of hair dropped from the envelope. I found afterwards that it contained a few words of farewell, dictated by Percy in his dying moments; and this sufficiently accounted for the state of mind into which its perusal plunged the unhappy Theresa. Before night she was a raving maniac, and in this state she was delivered of a dead infant.
“Need I describe my own feelings? need I tell you of the bitter disappointment of my heart in finding myself thus cruelly deceived? I had ventured all my hopes of earthly happiness on Theresa's affection; and one evil hour had seen the wreck of all! The eventful moment to which I had looked forward as that which was to confirm the blessings I held by the most sacred of ties, had brought with it misery and despair; for I was childless, and could scarcely still acknowledge myself a husband, till I knew how far I had been betrayed. Yet when I looked upon the ill-starred and suffering being before me, my angry feelings became appeased, and the words of reviling and bitterness expired upon my lips.
“Amid the ravings of her delirium the unfortunate Theresa alternately called upon Percy and myself, to defend her against the arts of her enemies, to save her from the King. 'They seek my dishonour,' she would say with the most touching expression, 'and alas! I am fatherless!' From the vehemence of her indignation whenever she mentioned the name of Charles, I became at length persuaded that some painful mystery connected with my marriage remained to be unfolded; and the papers which her estrangement of mind necessarily threw into my hands, soon made me acquainted with her eventful history. Such was the compassion with which it inspired me for the innocent and injured Theresa, that I have sat by her bedside, and wept for very pity to hear her address her Percy—her lost and beloved Percy, and at other times call down the vengeance of heaven upon the king, for his licentious and cruel tyranny.
“It was during her residence on the coast of Devonshire that she formed an acquaintance with Lord Hugh Percy, whose ship was stationed at a neighbouring port. They became strongly attached to each other; and with the buoyant incautiousness of youth, had already plighted their faith before it occurred to either, that her want of birth and fortune would render her unacceptable to his parents knowing, which he did, that they entered very different views for his future establishment in life, he dared not at present even make them acquainted with his engagement; and it was therefore mutually agreed between them that she should accept the proffered services of Lady Wriothesly for an introduction to the royal notice, and that he in the mean while, should seek in his profession the means of their future subsistence. Secure in their mutual good faith, they parted, and it was on this occasion that he had given her a song, which in her insanity she was constantly repeating. The refrain, 'Addio Teresa, Teresa Addio,' I remembered to have heard murmured by the Duke of Buckingham with a very significant expression, on the night when the agitation of Lady Greville had made itself so painfully apparent in the circle of the Queen.
“You will believe with what indignation, with what disgust, I discovered that shortly after her appointment at court, she had been persecuted with the licentious addresses of the king. It was nothing new to me that Charles, in the selfish indulgence of his passions, overlooked every barrier of honour and decency, but that the unprotected innocence of the daughter of an old and faithful servant, whose very life-blood had been poured forth in his defence, should not have been a safeguard in his eyes, was indeed incredible and revolting. But it was this orphan helplessness, this afflicting destitution which marked her for his prey.
“Encompassed by the toils of the spoiler, and friendless as she was, the unhappy Theresa knew not to whom to apply for succour or counsel; and in this painful exigence, she could only trust to her own discretion and purity of intention to shield her from the advances from which she shrunk with horror. Irritated by the opposition he encountered, and astonished by that dignity of virtue, which, 'severe in youthful beauty,' had power to awe even a monarch in the consciousness of guilt, the king by the most ungenerous private scrutiny of her correspondence, made himself acquainted with her attachment to Lord Hugh; and while she was eagerly looking for the arrival of the ship which contained her only protector, the authority of His Majesty prolonged its station in a distant and unhealthy climate, where her letters did not reach him, and whence his aid could avail her nothing.
“In this dilemma, when the death of Lady Wriothesly had deprived her of even the semblance of a friend, I was first presented to Miss Marchmont. The motive of the king in encouraging my attachment I can hardly guess, unless the thought to fix her at court by her marriage, where some future change of sentiment might throw her into his power; or possibly he hoped to make my addresses the means of separating her from the real object of her attachment, without contemplating a farther result, and thus the same wanton selfishness which rendered him regardless of every tie of moral feeling towards Theresa, led him to prepare a life of misery and dishonour for his early friend and faithful adherent.