arrested on the charge of abducting Alantha. At the trial he is accused
of having made away with her, and is sentenced to death, whereupon
Berinthia, the abbess, faints, and being revived, owns him for her son
by Alvario, and "in tears and blessings pours out all the mother on
him." At the proper moment Carlos comes in with Alantha to prove
Fernando's innocence. Felisinda rewards the constancy of Carlos, and
Fernando can do no less than marry Alantha.

Incest is almost the only crime not to be found in the extraordinary
series of barefaced and infamous intrigues crowded into the pages of
"The Injur'd Husband: or, the Mistaken Resentment" (1723). The author
naively remarks in the dedication that "The Subject of the Trifle I
presume to offer, is, The Worst of Women," and she has indeed
out-villained the blackest of her male villains in the character of the
wicked Baroness.

The doting Baron de Tortillee marries the lascivious and extravagant
Mademoiselle La Motte, who promotes the villainous Du Lache to be the
instrument of her vile pleasures. After enjoying several lovers of his
procuring, she fixes her affections upon the worthy Beauclair. Du Lache
despairs of ensnaring him, because he is about to marry the lovely
Montamour, but by a series of base expedients he manages to blacken the
character of that lady in her lover's eyes, and to put the charms of the
Baroness in such a light that Beauclair is at length drawn in to pay his
court to her. For some time she thus successfully deludes her husband,
but when the despicable La Branche openly boasts of her favors and
allows some of her letters to fall into the hands of one of her numerous
lovers, her perfidy is soon completely exposed. To add to her confusion
she hears that the Baron, whom she had drugged into idiocy and sent into
the country, has been cured by a skilful physician and is about to