er fault in her
three years agony. Be still awhile, remorseless prejudice, and let the
genuine feelings of my soul avow--they do not truly honour virtue, who
can insult the erring heart that would return to her sanctuary.
[_Looking with sorrow on her._] Rise, I beseech you, rise! My husband
and my brother may surprise us. I promise to be silent.

[_Raising her._

_Mrs. H._ Yes, you will be silent--But, oh! conscience! conscience! thou
never wilt be silent. [_Clasping her hands._] Do not cast me from you.

_Countess._ Never! Your lonely life, your silent anguish and contrition,
may at length atone your crime. And never shall you want an asylum,
where your penitence may lament your loss. Your crime was youth and
inexperience; your heart never was, never could be concerned in it.

_Mrs. H._ Oh! spare me! My conscience never martyrs me so horribly, as
when I catch my base thoughts in search of an excuse! No, nothing can
palliate my guilt; and the only just consolation left me, is, to acquit
the man I wronged, and own I erred without a cause of fair complaint.

_Countess._ And this is the mark of true repentance. Alas! my friend,
when superior sense, recommended too by superior charms of person,
assail a young, though wedded--

_Mrs. H._ Ah! not even that mean excuse is left me. In all that merits
admiration, respect, and love, he was far, far beneath my husband. But
to attempt to account for my strange infatuation--I cannot bear it. I
thought my husband's manner grew colder to me. 'Tis true I knew, that
his expenses, and his confidence in deceitful friends, had embarrassed
his means, and clouded his spirits; yet I thought he denied me pleasures
and amusements still within our reach. My vanity was mortified! My
confidence not courted. The serpent tongue of my seducer promised every
thing. But never could such arguments avail, till, assisted by forged
letters, and the treachery of a servant, whom I most confided in, he
fixed my belief that my lord was false, and that all the coldness I
complained of was disgust to me, and love for another; all his home
retrenchments but the means of satisfying a rival's luxury. Maddened
with this conviction, (conviction it was, for artifice was most
ingenious in its proof,) I left my children--father--husband--to
follow--a villain.

_Countess._ But, with such a heart, my friend could not remain long in
her delusion?

_Mrs. H._