He answered that my silence might extend to every thing anterior to my arrival in the city and my being incorporated with his family.

Here our conversation ended, and I retired to ruminate on what had passed.
I derived little satisfaction from my reflections.

I began now to perceive inconveniences that might arise from this precipitate promise.
Whatever should happen in consequence of my being immured in the chamber, and of the loss of my clothes and of the portrait of my friend, I had bound myself to silence.

These inquietudes, however, were transient.

I trusted that these events would operate auspiciously; but my curiosity was now awakened as to the motives which _Welbeck_ could have for exacting from me this concealment.