Take that, varlet, for saving the ungrateful wretch from my vengeance.
Wretch! I intended to say; but if it were some other word of like ending, passion must be my excuse.
Up ran two or three of the sisterhood, What’s the matter! What’s the matter!
The matter! (for still my beloved opened not the door; on the contrary, drew another bolt,) This abominable Dorcas!—(call her aunt up!—let her see what a traitress she has placed about me!—and let her bring the toad to answer for herself)—has taken a bribe, a provision for life, to betray her trust; by that means to perpetuate a quarrel between a man and his wife, and frustrate for ever all hopes of reconciliation between us!
Let me perish, Belford, if I have patience to proceed with the farce!
If I must resume, I must——
Up came the aunt, puffing and blowing—As she hoped for mercy, she was not privy to it! She never knew such a plotting, perverse lady in her life!—Well might servants be at the pass they were, when such ladies as Mrs. Lovelace made no conscience of corrupting them. For her part she desired no mercy for the wretch; no niece of her’s, if she were not faithful to her trust!—But what was the proof?——
She was shown the paper——
But too evident!—Cursed, cursed toad, devil, jade, passed from each mouth:—and the vileness of the corrupted, and the unworthiness of the corruptress, were inveighed against.