“I fear,” said Belcour, “he can be that villain.”

“Perhaps,” cried she, eagerly interrupting him, “perhaps he is married already:  come, let me know the worst,” continued she with an affected look of composure:  “you need not be afraid, I shall not send the fortunate lady a bowl of poison.”

“Well then, my dear girl,” said he, deceived by her appearance, “they were married on Thursday, and yesterday morning they sailed for Eustatia.”

“Married—­gone—­say you?” cried she in a distracted accent, “what without a last farewell, without one thought on my unhappy situation!  Oh Montraville, may God forgive your perfidy.”  She shrieked, and Belcour sprang forward just in time to prevent her falling to the floor.

Alarming faintings now succeeded each other, and she was conveyed to her bed, from whence she earnestly prayed she might never more arise.  Belcour staid with her that night, and in the morning found her in a high fever.  The fits she had been seized with had greatly terrified him; and confined as she now was to a bed of sickness, she was no longer an object of desire:  it is true for several days he went constantly to see her, but her pale, emaciated appearance disgusted him:  his visits became less frequent; he forgot the solemn charge given him by Montraville; he even forgot the money entrusted to his care; and, the burning blush of indignation and shame tinges my cheek while I write it, this disgrace to humanity and manhood at length forgot even the injured Charlotte; and, attracted by the blooming health of a farmer’s daughter, whom he had seen in his frequent excursions to the country, he left the unhappy girl to sink unnoticed to the grave, a prey to sickness, grief, and penury; while he, having triumphed over the virtue of the artless cottager, rioted in all the intemperance of luxury and lawless pleasure.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A trifling retrospect.

“Bless my heart,” cries my young, volatile reader, “I shall never have patience to get through these volumes, there are so many ahs! and ohs! so much fainting, tears, and distress, I am sick to death of the subject.”  My dear, cheerful, innocent girl, for innocent I will suppose you to be, or you would acutely feel the woes of Charlotte, did conscience say, thus might it have been with me, had not Providence interposed to snatch me from destruction:  therefore, my lively, innocent girl, I must request your patience:  I am writing a tale of truth:  I mean to write it to the heart:  but if perchance the heart is rendered impenetrable by unbounded prosperity, or a continuance in vice, I expect not my tale to please, nay, I even expect it will be thrown by with disgust.  But softly, gentle fair one; I pray you throw it not aside till you have perused the whole; mayhap you may find something therein to repay you for the trouble.  Methinks I see a sarcastic smile