'But where, madam, did you first meet with Mr. Wakefield?'

'In the city of ---- where he was bred, under his father, to the
profession of the law. From what I have seen of you, and from what I
have heard of your talents and understanding, I should have expected
you to have been the child of extraordinary parents; otherwise, I do
not much wonder at your mother's conduct, superior as she was to Mr.
Wakefield in years; for, of all the men I ever saw, he is the most
deceitful, plausible, and dangerous. Neither man nor woman are safe
with him; and his arts are such as to over-reach the most cautious. He
has words at will; and his wit and invention, which are extraordinary,
are employed to entrap, humiliate, degrade and ruin all with whom he
has intercourse. His ambition is to gratify his desires, by triumphing
over the credulity of the unsuspecting, whom he contemns for their
want of his own vices. It was he that, after having seduced me, placed
me in the family of the bishop, laid the plan that I should pass for
his lordship's niece, by various falsehoods cajoled me to acquiesce
(the chief of which was, that the project was but to save appearances,
till he could make me his wife) left me in that unworthy prelate's
power, then, returning to the country, plotted the marriage with your
mother, and, by his intimate knowledge of the weakness or vice of
each character, which he seems to catch instinctively, adapted his
scheme with such cunning to the avarice of his uncle as to gain his
concurrence and aid.

'It was my clandestine departure at this period, and the rumours and
suspicions to which it gave birth, that again drove my brother from
the country. For some months neither he nor my mother knew what was
become of me.