Without a leg to stand on, he must do as he was told. On the 12th November, therefore, he must call Deb to his chamber in the presence of his wife, “and there did, with tears in my eyes, which I could not help, discharge her, and advise her to be gone as soon as she could, and never to see me, or let me see her more while she was in the house, which she took with tears too.” She had found herself a place, and went to it; and Pepys looked forward now to a peace which he had not known, he says, for twenty days. He did not get it, because he was both knave and fool. Which this shows him to be I don’t pretend to decide. He writes on the very day the girl left: “The truth is, I have a good mind to have the maidenhead of this girl, which I should not doubt to have if je could get time para be con her.” The Italians used to call the compound of inclination and ability _il talento_, a word which our language lacks. Under the spur of _il talento_ this incurable rascal hunted London to find Deb’s whereabouts. He had reason for suspecting Holborn, and quartered that; then Whetstone Park seemed probable, in the service of one Dr. Allbon. Not known there. In Eagle Court, off the Strand, he presently found out that “this Dr. Allbon is a kind of poor broken fellow that dare not show his head, nor to be known where he is gone.” Nevertheless, he did finally run down his doctor in Fleet Street or thereby, even met a man in his employ, bribed him to take a message “to a little gentlewoman, one Mrs. Willett, that is with him,” and waited in the court of Somerset House for an answer. He did not have it till after dark. She was well, and he might see her if he would, “but no more.” That was enough for Pepys. Off he went in a coach, “it being now dark,” and “she come into the coach to me, and je did baiser her....” Then the real, the incredible Pepys: “I did nevertheless give her the best council I could, to have a care of her honour, and to fear God, and suffer no man para avoir to do con her as je have done, which she promised.” The advice was sound and, from him, infallible. To-morrow was to prove that much to him. I must afford myself the morrow’s entry.
“19th. Up and at the office all the morning, with my heart full of joy to think in what a safe condition all my matters now stand between my wife and Deb and me, and at noon, running upstairs to see the upholsterers, who are at work hanging my best room ... I find my wife sitting sad in the dining-room; which enquiring into the reason of, she begun to call me all the false, rotten-hearted rogues in the world, letting me understand that I was with Deb yesterday, which, thinking it impossible for her ever to understand, I did a while deny, but at last did, for the ease of my mind and hers, and for ever to discharge my heart of this wicked business, I did confess all, and above stairs in our bed chamber there I did endure the sorrow of her threats and vows and curses all the afternoon.... So with most perfect confusion of face and heart, and sorrow and shame, in the greatest agony in the world I did pass this afternoon, fearing that it will never have an end; but at last I did call for W. Hewer, who I was forced to make privy now to all, and the poor fellow did cry like a child, and obtained what I could not, that she would be pacified upon condition that I would give it under my hand never to see or speak with Deb while I live, as I had before with Pierce and Knipp, and which I did also, God knows, promise for Deb too, but I have the confidence to deny it to the perjury of myself.”