Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/303

 calm, and prevent its being in the power of any appearances to make him suddenly give way to suspicion; yet, in this case, the very name of his beloved Dorimene joined to the idea of falsehood, raised such a tumult in his breast, and filled his mind with such confusion, that all reason gave way to the present horror which possessed his soul—a horror greater than words can describe or fancy paint. "He threw himself on a bed like one distracted; [ repeated the names of Dumont and Dorimene a thousand times; then started up, and swore they must be innocent; that Pandolph had belied them, and he would sacrifice him for thus disturbing all his peace and enraging him to madness. But then he recollected that Dumont had once already, on a frivolous excuse, put off our marriage; that his wife had lately seemed artfully to contrive to send him out of the way, and ten thousand circumstances which had passed unheeded at the time of their happening—such as her sudden and strange melancholy a little after the Chevalier's arrival, her vast eagerness to marry me to Vieuville—rushed at once into his memory, and corresponded so exactly with what Pandolph had told him, that be began to be worked into a belief it was but too fatally true; and when he had given his passion some vent, he at last resolved to stifle, if possible, for the present, any appearance of his jealousy; and ordered the old man to continue to observe all their motions, and inform him of what he discovered; who, as soon as he had received his commands, left him. "Such a variety of thoughts crowded into the Marquis's mind the moment he found himself alone, that his perplexity was too great to suffer him to come to any certain determination. At last he concluded, that if the Chevalier again endeavoured to put off the marriage, it would be a convincing proof of the truth