return. Du Lache despatches two assassins to murder him on the road, but
the Baron by a lucky chance escapes the murderers, forces them to
confess, and sets out to punish his guilty wife. Meanwhile Beauclair
suspects that he has wronged his innocent lady and endeavors to see her,
but she at first refuses to see him, and when by a ruse he gains access
to her presence, will not listen to him or give him any grounds for
hope. In despair he returns to Paris and meets the young Vrayment. He
discovers the infamous Du Lache hiding in a convent. To save his life
the wretch offers to reveal the frauds he had put in practice against
Montamour, but while he is doing so, the Baron meets them, and
concluding that Beauclair is in collusion with the villain, attacks them
both. Beauclair disarms his antagonist and is about to return him his
weapon, when Du Lache stabs the Baron in the back. Vrayment has
witnessed the quarrel and summoned assistance. Beauclair and Du Lache
are haled before a magistrate and are about to be condemned equally for
the crime, when Vrayment reveals herself as Montamour disguised as a
man, and persuades the judge that Beauclair is innocent. Du Lache and
his accomplices are broken on the wheel, the Baroness takes poison, and
Beauclair is united to his faithful Montamour.

In the conduct of the story the writer shows no deficiency in expressing
the passions, but rather a want of measure, for thrill follows thrill so
fast that the reader can hardly realize what is happening. And as if the
lusts and crimes of the Baroness did not furnish enough sensational
incidents, the tender romance of Beauclair and Montamour is superadded.
The hero is a common romantic type, easily inconstant, but rewarded
above his merits by a faithful mistress. A woman disguised as a man was
a favorite device with Mrs. Haywood as well as with other writers of
love stories, but one need read only the brazen Mrs. Charke's memoirs or
Defoe's realistic "Moll Flanders" to discover that it was a device not