Yet untill I find him I must force reason to keep her seat, and I pressed my forehead hard with my hands--Oh do not leave me; or I shall forget what I am about--instead of driving on as we ought with the speed of lightning they will attend to me, and we shall be too late.

Oh! God help me! Let him be alive! It is all dark; in my abject misery I demand no more: no hope, no good: only passion, and guilt, and horror; but alive! Alive! My sensations choked me--No tears fell yet I sobbed, and breathed short and hard; one only thought possessed me, and I could only utter one word, that half screaming was perpetually on my lips; Alive! Alive!-- I had taken the steward[40] with me for he, much better than I[,] could make the requisite enquiries--the poor old man could not restrain his tears as he saw my deep distress and knew the cause--he sometimes uttered a few broken words of consolation: in moments like these the mistress and servant become in a manner equals and when I saw his old dim eyes wet with sympathizing tears; his gray hair thinly scattered on an age-wrinkled brow I thought oh if my father were as he is--decrepid & hoary--then I should be spared this pain-- When I had arrived at the nearest town I took post horses and followed the road my father had taken.

At every inn where we changed horses we heard of him, and I was possessed by alternate hope and fear.

A length I found that he had altered his route; at first he had followed the London road; but now he changed it, and upon enquiry I found that the one which he now pursued led _towards the sea_.

My dream recurred to my thoughts; I was not usually superstitious but in wretchedness every one is so.