At last, repeating his usual saying, that he could lie naked in the bed
with me and not offer me the least injury, he starts out of his bed.
'And now, my dear,' says he, 'you shall see how just I will be to you,
and that I can keep my word,' and away he comes to my bed.
I resisted a little, but I must confess I should not have resisted him
much if he had not made those promises at all; so after a little
struggle, as I said, I lay still and let him come to bed. When he was
there he took me in his arms, and so I lay all night with him, but he
had no more to do with me, or offered anything to me, other than
embracing me, as I say, in his arms, no, not the whole night, but rose
up and dressed him in the morning, and left me as innocent for him as I
was the day I was born.
This was a surprising thing to me, and perhaps may be so to others, who
know how the laws of nature work; for he was a strong, vigorous, brisk
person; nor did he act thus on a principle of religion at all, but of
mere affection; insisting on it, that though I was to him to most
agreeable woman in the world, yet, because he loved me, he could not
injure me.
I own it was a noble principle, but as it was what I never understood
before, so it was to me perfectly amazing. We traveled the rest of the
journey as we did before, and came back to the Bath, where, as he had
opportunity to come to me when he would, he often repeated the
moderation, and I frequently lay with him, and he with me, and although
all the familiarities between man and wife were common to us, yet he
never once offered to go any farther, and he valued himself much upon
it. I do not say that I was so wholly pleased with it as he thought I
was, for I own much wickeder than he, as you shall hear presently.
We lived thus near two years, only with this exception, that he went
three times to London in that time, and once he continued there four
months; but, to do him justice, he always supplied me with money to
subsist me very handsomely.
Had we continued thus, I confess we had had much to boast of; but as
wise men say, it is ill venturing too near the brink of a command, so
we found it; and here again I must do him the justice to own that the
first breach was not on his part. It was one night that we were in bed
together warm and merry, and having drunk, I think, a little more wine
that night, both of us, than usual, although not in the least to
disorder either of us, when, after some other follies which I cannot
name, and being clasped close in his arms, I told him (I repeat it with
shame and horror of soul) that I could find in my heart to discharge
him of his engagement for one night and no more.