It was a true forecast, for the earl, despite Peg's blandishments, withheld for a time his check book. And in the interim she gave the new-wed pair a house to live in and the money to run it.
And now for the last "big scene" of Peg's stage career: For some time she had been ailing. But she kept on with her acting.
On the evening of May 17, 1757, when she was at the very acme of her career, she played Rosalind at Covent Garden. Throughout the comedy she was at her scintillant best. The house was hers. Wave after wave of frantic applause greeted her, as, still in Rosalind's male habiliments, she stepped before the curtain, flushed and smiling, to deliver the epilogue.
Gayly stretching out her arms to pit and stalls, she began the familiar lines. With a gesture of infinite coquetry she continued:
"I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me; complexions that liked me—that liked me——"
She faltered, whitened under her make-up, skipped three full lines, and came to the "tag:"
"——when I make curtsy—bid me—bid me—farewell!"
The last line haltingly spoken, she threw her hands high in air and screamed in a voice of abject terror:
"Oh, God! Oh, God!"
It was a prayer, not an oath. Reeling, the actress staggered to the wings, and there fell, swooning, leaving the packed house behind her in an uproar of confusion.