her, and frequently rendered insensible to the horrid noises around
her, which previously had continually employed her feverish fancy.
Thinking it selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the
midst of wretches, who had not only lost all that endears life,
but their very selves, her imagination was occupied with melancholy
earnestness to trace the mazes of misery, through which so many
wretches must have passed to this gloomy receptacle of disjointed
souls, to the grand source of human corruption.  Often at midnight
was she waked by the dismal shrieks of demoniac rage, or of
excruciating despair, uttered in such wild tones of indescribable
anguish as proved the total absence of reason, and roused phantoms
of horror in her mind, far more terrific than all that dreaming
superstition ever drew.  Besides, there was frequently something
so inconceivably picturesque in the varying gestures of unrestrained
passion, so irresistibly comic in their sallies, or so
heart-piercingly pathetic in the little airs they would sing,
frequently bursting out after an awful silence, as to fascinate
the attention, and amuse the fancy, while torturing the soul.  It
was the uproar of the passions which she was compelled to observe;
and to mark the lucid beam of reason, like a light trembling in a
socket, or like the flash which divides the threatening clouds of
angry heaven only to display the horrors which darkness shrouded.

     Jemima would labour to beguile the tedious evenings, by
describing the persons and manners of the unfortunate beings, whose
figures or voices awoke sympathetic sorrow in Maria's bosom; and
the stories she told were the more interesting, for perpetually
leaving room to conjecture something extraordinary.  Still Maria,
accustomed to generalize her observations, was led to conclude from
all she heard, that it was a vulgar error to suppose that people
of abilities were the most apt to lose the command of reason.  On
the contrary, from most of the instances she could investigate,
she thought it resulted, that the passions only appeared strong
and disproportioned, because the judgment was weak and unexercised;
and that they gained strength by the decay of reason, as the shadows
lengthen during the sun's decline.

     Maria impatiently wished to see her fellow-sufferer; but
Darnford was still more earnest to obtain an interview.  Accustomed
to submit to every impulse of passion, and never taught, like women,
to restrain the most natural, and acquire, instead of the bewitching
frankness of nature, a factitious propriety of behaviour, 
every desire became a torrent that bore down all opposition.

     His travelling trunk, which contained the books lent to Maria,
had been sent to him, and with a part of its contents he bribed
his principal keeper; who, after receiving the most solemn promise
that he would return to his apartment without attempting to explore
any part of the house, conducted him, in the dusk of the evening,
to Maria's room.

     Jemima had apprized her charge of the visit, and she expected
with trembling impatience, inspired by a vague hope that he might
again prove her deliverer, to see a man who had before rescued her
from oppression.  He entered with an animation of countenance,
formed to captivate an enthusiast; and, hastily turned his eyes
from her to the apartment, which he surveyed with apparent emotions
of compassionate indignation.  Sympathy illuminated his eye, and,
taking her hand, he respectfully bowed on it, exclaiming--"This is
extraordinary!--again to meet you, and in such circumstances!"
Still, impressive as was the coincidence of events which brought
them once more together, their full hearts did not overflow.--*

     * The copy which had received the author's last corrections
     breaks off in this place, and the pages which follow, to the end
     of Chap.  IV, are printed from a copy in a less finished state.
     [Godwin's note]

     [And though, after this first visit, they were permitted
frequently to repeat their interviews, they were for some time
employed in] a reserved conversation, to which all the world might
have listened; excepting, when discussing some literary subject,
flashes of sentiment, inforced by each relaxing feature, seemed to
remind them that their minds were already acquainted.

     [By degrees, Darnford entered into the particulars of his
story.] In a few words, he informed her that he had been a
thoughtless, extravagant young man; yet, as he described his faults,
they appeared to be the generous luxuriancy of a noble mind.
Nothing like meanness tarnished the lustre of his youth, nor had
the worm of selfishness lurked in the unfolding bud, even while he
had been the dupe of others.  Yet he tardily acquired the experience
necessary to guard him against future imposition.

     "I shall weary you," continued he, "by my egotism; and did
not powerful emotions draw me to you,"--his eyes glistened as he
spoke, and a trembling seemed to run through his manly frame,--
"I would not waste these precious moments in talking of myself.

     "My father and mother were people of fashion; married by their
parents.  He was fond of the turf, she of the card-table. I, and
two or three other children since dead, were kept at home till we
became intolerable.  My father and mother had a visible dislike to
each other, continually displayed; the servants were of the depraved
kind usually found in the houses of people of fortune.  My brothers
and parents all dying, I was left to the care of guardians; and
sent to Eton.  I never knew the sweets of domestic affection, but
I felt the want of indulgence and frivolous respect at school.
I will not disgust you with a recital of the vices of my youth,
which can scarcely be comprehended by female delicacy.  I was taught