Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/297

 resolutions of preferring death, or what is yet worse, a life of torment, to the wronging her husband. "But then immediately Dumont's image presented itself to her imagination, softened her a little into a sense of pleasure, and banished every other thought from her mind; but this lasted not long, before the idea that he must be another's spitefully intruded itself on her memory. Horror and confusion took place of the pleasing scenes with which she had just before been indulging her fancy; and then, instead of thinking on arguments to calm her passion, she turned all her endeavours to find out what would best excuse it; and pleaded to herself that she might have been married when first my brother saw her; nay, she might have happened to have been wife to his best friend; and that then, perhaps, he would have found it as difficult to resist the torrent of his inclinations as she now did to subdue hers. The thought of being his friend's wife quite overcame her, and sighs and tears were her only relief from these agonizing reflections. "She endured several of these conflicts within her own bosom, without any other consequence attending them than the pain she suffered; but when the day was again fixed for our marriage, her passion grew outrageous, overleaped all bounds, and honour, virtue, and duty were found but shallow banks, which immediately gave way to the overflowing of the mighty torrent. Something she was resolved to do to prevent my marrying Dumont; although her own, her husband's, nay, even the Chevalier's perdition, should be the consequence of the attempt.

"One morning, when the Marquis de Stainville was gone out, and I happened to be in my own chamber, she saw Dumont from her window walking towards that very grotto where she had at first beheld him: she stayed till she thought he was seated there, and then followed him; but such was the condition of