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 choice, save whether to confess to the Admiral the dreadful nature of her call to the Continent; or to go thither simply as a thing of course, to join her husband.

For the latter, his approvance was declared; for the former, even his consent might be withdrawn: to spare, therefore, to his kind heart the unavailing knowledge of her misery; and to herself the useless conflicts that might ensue from the discovery; she ultimately decided to set out upon her voyage, with her story and misfortunes unrevealed.

This plan determined upon, she struggled to fortify her mind for its execution, by endeavouring to consider as her husband the man to whom, in any manner, she had given her hand; since so, only, she could seek to check the disgust with which she shrunk from him as her deadliest foe. She remembered, and even sought to call back, the terrific scruples with which she had been seized, when, while striving to escape, she heard him assert that she was his wife, and felt