Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/254

 sweet boy, and the state of his wretched mother, found a place in my bosom for a time, to the total exclusion of all other cares. She requested me to hasten to her without delay, if I wished to see her before she died.

I took leave of the monks, and travelled with all speed to Paris, and thence to Calais. Reaching Quillac's hotel, I received a shock which, although I apprehended danger, I was not prepared for. It was a letter from Eugenia's agent, announcing her death. She had been seized with a brain fever, and had died at a small town in Norfolk, where she had removed soon after our last unhappy interview. The agent concluded his letter by saying, that Eugenia had bequeathed me all her property, which was very considerable, and that her last rational words to him were, that I was her first and her only love.

I was new callous to suffering. My feelings had been racked to insensibility. Like a ship in a hurricane, the last tremendous sea had swept