m which she is herself eternally excluded. Doubt not,
dear sovereign of my soul! that I will study, with all the eagerness of
desiring love, how to frustrate her malicious intention, and renew those
transporting moments, the remembrance of which now warms the breast of
your ever constant FATHOM."

Had our hero murdered her father, or left her a disconsolate widow, by
effecting the death of her dear husband, there might have been a
possibility of her exerting the Christian virtues of resignation and
forgiveness; but such a personal outrage as that contained in this
epistle precluded all hope of pardon, and rendered penitence of no
signification. His atrocious crime being now fully ascertained, this
virago gave a loose to her resentment, which became so loud and
tempestuous, that her informer shuddered at the storm she had raised, and
began to repent of having communicated the intelligence which seemed to
have such a violent effect upon hex brain.

She endeavoured, however, to allay the agitation, by flattering her fancy
with the prospect of revenge, and gradually soothed her into a state of
deliberate ire; during which she determined to take ample vengeance on
the delinquent. In the zenith of her rage, she would have had immediate
recourse to poison or steel, had she not been diverted from her mortal
purpose by her counsellor, who represented the danger of engaging in such
violent measures, and proposed a more secure scheme, in the execution of
which she would see the perfidious wretch sufficiently punished, without
any hazard to her own person or reputation. She advised her to inform
the jeweller of Fathom's efforts to seduce her conjugal fidelity, and
impart to him a plan, by which he would have it in his power to detect
our adventurer in the very act of practising upon her virtue.

The lady relished her proposal, and actually resolved to make an
assignation with Ferdinand, as usual, and give notice of the appointment
to her husband, that he might personally discover the treachery of his
pretended friend, and inflict upon him such chastisement as the German's
brutal disposition should suggest, when inflamed by that species of
provocation. Had this project been brought to bear, Ferdinand, in all
likelihood, would have been disqualified from engaging in any future
intrigue; but fate ordained that the design should be defeated, in order
to reserve him for more important occasions.

Be