My armour with my Lord —— began now to draw to an end, and indeed, notwithstanding his money, it had lasted so long that I was much more sick of his lordship than he could be of me. He grew old and fretful and captious, and I must add, which made the vice itself begin to grow surfeiting and nauseous to me, he grew worse and wickeder the older he grew, and that to such degree as is not fit to write of, and made me so weary of him that upon one of his capricious humours, which he often took occasion to trouble me with, I took occasion to be much less complaisant to him than I used to be; and as I knew him to be hasty, I first took care to put him into a little passion and then to resent it, and this brought us to words, in which I told him I thought he grew sick of me; and he answered, in a heat, that truly so he was. I answered that I found his lordship was endeavouring to make me sick too, that I had met with several such rubs from him of late, and that he did not use me as he used to do, and I begged his lordship he would make himself easy. This I spoke with an air of coldness and indifference such as I knew he could not bear; but I did not downright quarrel with him and tell him I was sick of him too, and desire him to quit me, for I knew that would come of itself; besides, I had received a great deal of handsome usage from him, and I was loath to have the breach be on my side, that he might not be able to say I was ungrateful. But he put the occasion into my hands, for he came no more to me for two months; indeed, I expected a fit of absence, for such I had had several times before, but not for above a fortnight or three weeks at most. But after I had stayed a month, which was longer than ever he kept away yet, I took a new method with him, for I was resolved now it should be in my power to continue or not as I thought fit. At the end of a month, therefore. I removed and took lodgings at Kensington Gravel Pits, and that part next to the road to Acton, and left nobody in my lodgings but Amy and a footman, with proper instructions how to behave when his lordship being come to himself should think fit to come again, which I knew he would.
About the end of two months, he came in the dusk of the evening as usual. The footman answered him, and told him his lady was not at home, but there was Mrs. Amy above; so he did not order her to be called down, but went upstairs into the dining-room, and Mrs. Amy came to him. He asked where I was. “My Lord,” said she, “my mistress has been removed a good while from hence, and lives at Kensington.” “Ay, Mrs. Amy! how come you to be here, then?” “My Lord,” said she, “we are here till the quarter-day, because the goods are not removed, and to give answers if any comes to ask for my lady.” “Well, and what answer are you to give me?” “Indeed, my Lord,” says Amy, “I have no particular answer to your lordship but to tell you and everybody else where my lady lives, that they may not think she’s run away.” “No, Mrs. Amy,” says he, “I don’t think she’s run away, but indeed I can’t go after her so far as that.” Amy said nothing to that, but made a curtsy, and said she believed I would be there again for a week or two in a little time. “How little time, Mrs. Amy?” says my Lord. “She comes next Tuesday,” says Amy. “Very well,” says my Lord, “I’ll call and see her then “; and so he went away.
Accordingly I came on the Tuesday and stayed a fortnight, but he came not; so I went back to Kensington, and after that I had very few of his lordship’s visits, which I was very glad of, and in a little time after was more glad of it than I was at first, and upon a far better account too.