desired, replied--

"O wickedest of men! From whom do you imagine you took it? You thought
it was from my maid-servant, for love of whom you expended more than
twice as much of your substance as you ever did for me. The first time
you came to bed I thought you as much in love as it was possible to be;
but after you had gone out and were come back again, you seemed to be
a very devil. Wretch! think how blind you must have been to bestow such
praises on my person and lustiness, which you have long enjoyed
without holding them in any great esteem. 'Twas, therefore, not the
maid-servant's beauty that made the pleasure so delightful to you, but
the grievous sin of lust which so consumes your heart and so clouds
your reason that in the frenzy of your love for the servant you would,
I believe, have taken a she-goat in a nightcap for a comely girl! Now,
husband, it is time to amend your life, and, knowing me to be your wife,
and an honest woman, to be as content with me as you were when you took
me for a pitiful strumpet. What I did was to turn you from your evil
ways, so that in your old age we might live together in true love and
repose of conscience. If you purpose to continue your past life, I had
rather be severed from you than daily see before my eyes the ruin of
your soul, body, and estate. But if you will acknowledge the evil of
your ways, and resolve to live in fear of God and obedience to His
commandments, I will forget all your past sins, as I trust God will
forget my ingratitude in not loving Him as I ought to do."

If ever man was reduced to despair it was this unhappy husband. Not only
had he abandoned this sensible, fair, and chaste wife for a woman who
did not love him, but, worse than this, he had without her knowledge
made her a strumpet by causing another man to participate in the leasure
which should have been for himself alone; and thus he had made himself