To-morrow they will be going to Hope Park, where I
think it very proper you should make your bow. Call for me first,
when I may possibly have something for your private hearing; then
you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct of my misses;
and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy."
I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was
beside the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I
know not how; and when I was forth again in the close, and the door
had shut behind me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my
face. That horrid apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang
in my memory, as a sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear.
Tales of the man's father, of his falseness, of his manifold
perpetual treacheries, rose before me from all that I had heard and
read, and joined on with what I had just experienced of himself.
Each time it occurred to me, the ingenious foulness of that calumny
he had proposed to nail upon my character startled me afresh. The
case of the man upon the gibbet by Leith Walk appeared scarce
distinguishable from that I was now to consider as my own.
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