desirous (added the Count) of preserving the reputation of an ungrateful wretch, whom I can never again acknowledge as a daughter, unless she is your wife."—He added, "that from every circumstance he had investigated, it was certain that Count M*** held no correspondence with her, and that in his opinion the most certain conclusion was, that she had escaped to some Convent. He earnestly pressed me to come and reside with him, leaving a trusty person on my own estate, who might still continue every proper inquiry, and that should it be possible for her to lie concealed in my neighbourhood, my absence would throw her off her guard, and when we least expected it, she might be discovered."
This letter at once determined me, and in a very few days after I set off on my journey to Suabia. The Count's Castle lay between Stutgard, the capital of Suabia, and Baden, and, after a fatiguing journey, I arrived on the very day on which he had expired, of the gout in his stomach. I found his domestics expected my arrival, in consequence of my
