Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/174

Rh declared that I would not go. This led to an altercation, when the mistress of the house pronounced me incorrigible, and said she would not keep me for a hundred pounds a year. She, in fact, became so weary of having me there, that she sent to my mother to take me away.

My mother, in consequence, sent a carriage for me, and took me again into her house; but I became so unhappy in a place where I was secluded and destitute of all agreeable society, that I earnestly requested her to allow me to leave Canada. I believe she felt ready to have me removed to a distance, that she might not be in danger of having my attempt at self-destruction, and my confinement in prison made public.

There was a fact which I had not disclosed, and of which all were ignorant: viz., that which had so much influence in exciting me to leave the convent, and to reject every idea of returning to it.

When conversing with my mother about leaving Canada, I proposed to go to New York. She inquired why I wished to go there. I made no answer to that question; for though I had never been there, and knew scarcely anything about the place, I presumed that I should find protection from my enemies, as I knew it was in a Protestant country. I had not thought of going to the United States before, because I had no one to go with me, nor money enough to pay my expenses; but then a plan presented itself to my mind, by which I thought I might proceed to New York in safety.

There was a man who I presumed would wish to have me leave Canada, on his own account; and that was the man I had so precipitately married while residing at St. Denis. He must have had motives, as I thought, for wishing me at a distance. I proposed, therefore, that he should be informed that I was in Montreal, and anxious to go to the States, and such a message was sent to him by a woman whom my mother knew. She had a little stand for the sale of some articles, and had