This she thought so highly criminal in herself, that she ought not to indulge the remembrance of so dear, so dangerous, an invader of her duty; yet when she considered that, merely for her sake, and not through the weak resistance she had made, his own honour had nobly triumphed over wild desire in a heart so young and amorous as his, it increased that love and admiration which she in vain endeavoured to subdue: and she could not help crying out, with Calista in the play—
'Oh, had I sooner known thy wond'rous virtue,
Thy love, thy truth, thou excellent young man!
We might have both been happy.'
But, to banish as much as possible all those ideas which her nicety of honour made her tremble at, it was her fixed determination to retire into L——e as soon as she had ended her affairs with her husband, and pass the remainder of her days, where she should never hear the too dear name of Trueworth.
She did not, therefore, neglect sending her servant to town; but he returned that day, and several succeeding ones, without the least intelligence; no letter nor message from Mr. Munden having been left for her at her brother's: on which she began to imagine that he never had, in reality, intended to put his threats in execution.
Mr. Markland, in the mean time, had been twice to wait upon him; but the servants told him that their master was extremely indisposed, and could not be seen: this he looked upon as a feint to put off giving him an answer as he had promised; and both Mr. Thoughtless and his sister were of the same opinion when they heard it. Mr. Markland went again and again, however; but was still denied access: near a whole week passing over in this manner, Mrs. Munden grew very uneasy, fearing she should be able to obtain as little justice as favour from her husband.
But, guilty as he had been in other respects, he was entirely innocent in this: the force of the agitation he had of late sustained, joined to repeated debauches, had over-heated his blood, and thrown him into a very violent fever, insomuch that in a few days his life was despaired of; the whispers of all about him—the looks of the physician that attended him—and, above all, what he felt within himself, convincing him of the danger he was in—all his vices, all his excesses, now appeared to him such as they truly were, and filled him with a remorse which he had been but too much addicted to ridicule in others: in fine, the horrors of approaching dissolution, rendered him one of those many examples which daily verify these words of Mr. Dryden—
'Sure there are none but fear a future state!
And when the most obdurate swear they do not,
Their trembling hearts belie their boasting tongues!'
Among the number of those faults which presented him with the most direful images, that of the ill-treatment he had given a wife, who so little deserved it, lay not the least heavy upon his conscience: he sent his servants to Mr. Thoughtless, at whose house he imagined she still was, to intreat he would prevail on her to see him before he died; but that gentleman giving a very slight answer, as believing it all artifice, he engaged the apothecary who administered to him, and was known by Mr. Thoughtless, to go on the same errand; on which the brother of Mrs. Munden said she was not with him at present, but he would send to let her know what had happened. Accordingly, he dispatched one of his men immediately to her with the following billet.
'To Mrs. Munden.
Dear sister,
Mr. Cardiack, the apothecary, assures me that your husband is in fact ill, and in extreme danger; he is very pressing to see you: I will not pretend to advise you what to do on this occasion—you are the best judge; I shall only say that, if you think fit to comply with his request, you must be speedy; for, it seems, it is the opinion of the gentlemen of the faculty, that he is very near his end. I am, dear sister, yours affectionately,
T. Thoughtless.'
Not all the indifference she had for the person of Mr. Munden—not all the resentment his moroseness and ill-nature had excited in her—could hinder her from feeling an extreme shock on hearing his life was in danger: she sought for no excuses, either to evade or delay what he desired of her; she went directly to him, equally inclined to do so by her compassion, as she thought herself obliged to it by her duty.