Page:Adventures of Rachel Cunningham.djvu/15

 They arrived at Bedford Pa. as appointed, and were received with the warmest gratulations by her aunt and introduced to the elegant apartments prepared for their reception, where she passed as Mrs. Haverley, but not without indulging her vicious propensity to variety of intrigue, particularly with a Mr. G—, a young man of great property and dashing appearance, with whom, at last, she was detected by her protector, in a situation of amorous connection quite unequivocal; the immediate result of which was a duel that terminated fatally to Mr. Haverley, who receiving his adversary's shot, instantly fell and expired on the ground

Here her real character became more decidedly developed, he heard the intelligence of the above mentioned melancholy event with the most senseless apathy, and so brutally indecent was her indifference to the fate of the man whose very soul's dearest affections she knew were devoted wholly to her in boundless love and attachment that ended only with his life, that, without regard or waiting for the funeral arrangements being made and concluded, she, the very succeeding day to the event of the duel, and while yet, the outstretched corpse of him, whose tender kindnesses she had so often and eminently experienced was scarcely cold, ransacked all the property he had with him, possessed herself of all his cash, jewels, and every valuable that came or could be brought within her fingers' reach, at once disposed of the horses, carriage, and splendid equipments for a very considerable sum, and on the forenoon of the next day, she taking her seal at the side of the very man, by whose band her former too fondly-doating protector had fallen, departed from Bedford amidst the execrations of all who witnessed her disgusting conduct on that occasion, while she (this Rachel Cunningham,) in the presence and to her aunt, unblushingly avowed that she was not the wife of the defunct Mr. Haverley, that she was herself her own properly, and therefore no one had province to dispute her right of disposing of her person as her own pleasure should direct.