Hil. Thanks, my lady! You have been so good to me.
Adri. Nay, Hilda! I deeply sympathize with you in your trouble, and I feel assured that your villainous husband will, some day, meet the punishment he so richly deserves.
Hil. Yes, my lady. How near he came to wrecking your happiness, also. It makes me shudder to think of it.
Adri. Yes, Hilda! but Heaven saved me from such a fate. It is with shame that I must acknowledge that I was so blinded to his real character as to love him. Thank Heaven, my eyes have been opened to his treachery and baseness.
Hil. Oh, my lady! I am so glad to know that you forgave my silence about his true character.
Adri. I could not blame you, Hilda. It was a bitter lesson, and I can only reproach my folly for listening to his ardent appeals of love. I thought him a gentleman of the highest honor, worthy of the love of a virtuous and innocent girl. But your exposure of his utter depravity has saved me from despair. It has awakened me to a keen sense of the great injustice I have done him who has honored me with his name—my husband. Oh, the agony I have inflicted upon that noble, trusting heart! Oh, that it was I that drove him from me by my wretched cruelty!—perhaps to meet his death upon the gory field of battle.
Enter Morris, door in L. F. He pauses and listens.
Adri. Oh, may the Heavenly Father spare his life and bring him safely back to this bleeding heart.
Hil. Oh, Adrienne! then you love him?