'"Oh! Charlie!" I cried, as I threw myself in his arms, "I cannot say! I cannot say! Perhaps mother will tell me that after what I have done she won't have me home again!"

'"And then!" cried poor Charlie eagerly.

'"And then, of course, I would come with you, Charlie."

'"That means if your mother – confound her! – says come home, Lizzie, you will leave me?"

'"Can't I go home with her if she will have me and come to you another time, Charlie dearest?" said I.

'"Well," he cried, "now let us get rid of this uncertainty, Lizzie! Though it rests with you, I fancy! If you had any pluck at all you would send her word that you could not see her!"

'"Then she would come in here, Charlie. You don't know my mother! She is very kind, but if she says she will do a thing, she does it!"

'"By Jove! Yes! I forgot! She would come in here and then there would be a devil of a row! Run! Lizzie! run, and keep her out like a good girl!"

'I dried my eyes, went quickly downstairs, out of the hotel and on to the pier, along which I walked, straining my eyes in the fast gathering darkness to see where my mother could be. At last I saw a figure standing just in front of the recess, and I recognised my mother and flew to her. She received me with open arms, folding me tightly to her bosom, and there we both stood clasped together, and both sobbing as if our hearts would break.

'Charlie, I can't go into the details of that sad meeting. You must spare me and let me only say that my mother did not say one word of upbraiding or scolding; she told me that she had nearly died of fear and sorrow when she found me gone and keeping her wits about her she spread no report, asked nobody about me, but putting two and two together came to the conclusion that if I had gone with anybody it would probably have been an officer of the Hussars. Then she found out that Captain Vincent had his stables behind our house and that he had gone on leave from the very day I had disappeared and accidentally she saw his name and that of his wife in the Dover papers, as being at the Ship. She had found out that he was not married, had come straight to Dover, on a chance had sent the note, hoping that the Honourable Mrs Vincent might be myself, as indeed it was! She said that whatever mischief had been done had been done, and that the only thing to do was not to make it worse by raising a scandal. She told me to go back to Charlie, to stay with him for the night, to manage to return home after dark to Canterbury, where she would meet me and have a cab ready outside the station. Our reserved and quiet way of living had prevented our neighbours noticing my absence, and unless some future event happened nobody need know anything about it.

'All my dreams of a little house in London came to an end. I loved my Charlie, it is true, but it was cunt love more than that of the heart, and my mother easily prevailed on me to give him up.

'Charlie, poor fellow, was overjoyed when he saw me return. He fancied I was coming back for good, and his disappointment was intense and bitter when he knew that I had firmly resolved to return to my own home, and not to go to London with him! but presently when the first bitter draught was swallowed, he said that of all wonderfully wise women he had ever heard of, my mother beat all in getting me back to him for the night.

'Ah! well! I had a quiet and not altogether unhappy life with my mother until I was fifteen. The Hussars had left Canterbury and though I naturally often thought of Charlie, I was rather indignant that he never apparently once tried to see me again. He told me afterwards that he had done all he could think of to get letters to me. Perhaps my mother intercepted them. I never got any of them. I hate the next episode in my life. One day I met a sergeant, dressed in the old and beloved Hussar uniform. I got talking to him, and from talking to walking, and from walking to lovemaking, and from lovemaking to fucking! I could not help it! I wanted a man most dreadfully, and all my cunt's old fire came back at the sight of the Hussar uniform. Of course, I acted deceitfully, and kept all from my mother, who had hoped by trusting me fully to prevent all such action on my part. My new lover was only on furlough. He had not been gone long before I found I was, this time, let in for a baby. My distraction nearly killed me, and all the more because I feared to tell my mother. But time told her. My figure lost its elegant shape and I had to confess – the awful, awful pain of that confession. But true to herself, my mother lost none of her wits. She found out my second seducer, went and saw him, found him to be the master tailor of the regiment, told him what an excellent dressmaker I was, proposed marriage, held out the promise of a fair dowry, her savings for many years – poor mother! – and I was married to Sergeant Thomas Wilson in time to save the legitimacy of my baby. But we did not live happily.

'One day when my husband was out, Charlie came to see me. Oh! I was glad to see him. We had a long explanation and it all ended in his having me on my husband's bed! I was fucked again – joyful thought – by the darling man who had taught me what a sweet thing it was! But hardly had Charlie gone than in came Tom. Going from room to room he saw his own bed tumbled, and then he grinned! He accused me of having had Charlie whom he had met, and of whom he had heard, goodness knows how, and there and then he made me an offer which I accepted. It was that to bring him custom, I should let myself be – admired. He would hear nothing, see nothing, know nothing! I was too unhappy with him not to jump at an offer which would give me back Charlie! All that had to be done was that a suit of clothes should be ordered from time to time, and Charlie ordered at least a dozen. More and more officers followed his example and soon my husband had them all, every one, from colonel to junior lieutenant, on his books, and I had them all as my lovers. I had several children. I only know the father of one for certain, and that was my husband. I think the second was Charlie's, but I am not sure. None lived. That is my story, a sad mixture of happiness and misery, folly on my side and wisdom on my mother's.'

I could not but wonder how it could be that such a sweet countenance could be the seat of a temple in which Venus reigned, not only to the exclusion of all other gods and goddesses, but with more than ordinary power. I must leave my gentle readers to form their own opinions of this lovely wanton, but that there was much good in her I became convinced the more I knew her. At all events it is not for me to throw the stone of condemnation at her. To enjoy a woman and then run her down is not my style. Lizzie must have had a yearning for a purer and a better life, for she was constantly urging me to send for my beloved Louie, warning me that if I did not I should most certainly constantly wander from the path of virtue, and also saying that it was not fair to any woman, especially one who loved her husband, in every sense of that expansive word, to leave her to pine alone. Well, it was my hope that either I should rejoin my Louie in England, or that she should come out to me in India, but the fates were against us.

During the remainder of my stay in Nowshera, I enjoyed my tender Lizzie in all tranquillity and my tender girl readers may be sure that every opportunity was taken, and none lost, of procuring both for her and for myself the most complete pleasure which our active senses could expect. Her poor thighs were still marked by the violence of the brute Searle when I last saw them, but the sweet, sweet cunt between them lost neither beauty nor attraction on that account. To this day I look back upon that week of ardent fucking with regretful delight. I have never yet succeeded in regretting having sinned against heaven and my dearest wife in having broken the seventh commandment with Lizzie. 'Stolen waters are sweet,' saith Solomon, and I, Charles Devereaux, say to that, 'Amen, Amen, verily that is true.'