I only mention this to excuse my father in your eyes, should you conclude he was too harsh in the course he insisted I should pursue.

He forbade him the house, and refused to allow any correspondence between us; at the same time he promised that if he would perfectly reform from the life he was leading, at the end of two years he would permit the marriage.
I promised in return to bind myself to these conditions.

Will you believe it, that seated on my mother's grave, with my head upon my kind father's breast, I vowed, that as I hoped for Heaven I would never break my promise, never see him again, without my father's permission, until the expiration of this period; and yet I did break it.

I have nearly done.

I left home secretly.