VIII - APRIL 3RD—MAY 10TH, 1828

Summary

20th May, 1828.—I hope by this time some of the many letters sent you during the last four months will have reached you, and from them you will have learned all the circumstances connected with my marriage, or rather the events which led to it. It is useless to dwell here on them, and some are too painful to recur to willingly. I must try to forget some part of my existence, its separate portions and situations can hardly be reconciled. I think I wrote to you by the Herald and told you I was shortly to marry Fenton, but was too weak then to enter more fully on the subject. It were wise to touch as lightly on the past as possible, yet to be intelligible to you I must retrace something of it.

When Fenton arrived in Calcutta in April, I was sufficiently recovered to walk from my bedroom to the couch in my dressing-room and very imperfectly recollected the occurrences of my long illness. I hardly remember its commencement, I believe from the period I discontinued writing as usual; I can recall to mind, the day after, sitting down and attempting to write, and the paper seeming to me covered with spots of blood; that I went out in the carriage in the evening, and could not distinguish one face from another; the next day sent for Dr. Martin, and after some days his visits were discontinued; he was himself attacked with the same fever.