He urged, that could he have supported the pain of living without
her, he never would have made himself so great a villain; but when the
absolute question was, whether he should destroy himself, or betray
her, self-love had turned the ballance, though not without that
anguish to his soul, which had poisoned all his delights, and planted
daggers to stab his peace. That he had a thousand times started in
his sleep with guilty apprehensions; the form of her honoured father
perpetually haunting his troubled dreams, reproaching him as a traitor
to that trust which in his departing moments he had reposed in him;
representing to his tortured imagination the care he took of his
education, more like a father than an uncle, with which he had
rewarded him by effecting the perdition of his favourite daughter, who
was the lovely image of his benefactor.

With this artful contrition he endeavoured to sooth his injured wife:
But what soothing could heal the wounds she had received? Horror!
amazement! sense of honour lost! the world's opinion! ten thousand
distresses crowded her distracted imagination, and she cast looks upon
the conscious traitor with horrible dismay! Her fortune was in his
hands, the greatest part of which was already lavished away in the
excesses of drinking and gaming. She was young, unacquainted with the
world; had never experienced necessity, and knew no arts of redressing
it; so that thus forlorn and distressed, to whom could she run for
refuge, even from want, and misery, but to the very traitor that had
undone her. She was acquainted with none that could or would espouse
her cause, a helpless, useless load of grief and melancholy! with
child! disgraced! her own relations either unable, or unwilling to
relieve her.

Thus was she detained by unhappy circumstances, and his prevailing