Natura, who imagined nothing more certain, than that Maria had set this fellow on to murder him, as the surest way to get rid of his addresses, went directly to the house where she lodged, full of a resentment equal to the detestable crime of which he thought her guilty;—­he found her in the room with her father and mother, of whom he took little notice, but stepped forwards to the place where she was sitting; and seeing her a little surprized, which indeed was occasioned only by his sudden return, and the abrupt manner in which he entered:—­’You find, madam,’ said he, with a voice broke with rage, ’your plot has miscarried;—­Natura still lives, though it must be owned your emissary did all could be expected to obey your commands, for my destruction.’

It is hard to say, whether Maria, or her parents, were in the greatest consternation at these words; but he soon unravelled the mystery, by relating the whole story, not omitting what the assassin said in presenting the pistol, and then as a confirmation throwed the letter he had received into Maria’s lap, and at the same time shewed the passage one of the bullets had made through the sleeve of his coat:—­the young lady no sooner cast her eyes upon the letter, than she gave a great shriek, and crying out, ’O Humphry, Humphry! every way my ruin!’ immediately fell fainting on the floor; her father, without regarding the condition she was in, snatched up the paper, the hand-writing of which he presently recollected, as having, it seems, intercepted several wrote by the same person;—­’Abandoned, infamous creature,’ cried he;—­’shame of thy sex and family,’ added the mother, striking her breast in the utmost agony:—­in fine, never was such a scene of distraction and despair!—­Natura, injured as he had been, could not behold it without compassion;—­he ran by turns to Maria, endeavouring to raise her,—­then to her parents, beseeching them to moderate their passion,—­then to her again:—­’You are too generous,’ said the father, ’let her die, happy had it been if she had perished in the cradle’:—­Just as he spoke these words she revived, and lifting up her eyes, ‘O, I am no murd’ress,’ cried she, ’guilty as I am, in this Heaven knows my innocence.’—­’It is false, it is false,’ said the father; ’but were it true, canst thou deny, thou most abandoned wretch, that thou wert also ignorant that the villain who wrote this letter had followed us to Spaw, and bring a second shame upon us?’—­She answered to this only with her tears, which assuring him she had no defence to make on this article, his rage grew more inflamed; he loaded her with curses, and could not keep himself from spurning her with his feet, as she still lay groveling on the ground, and might perhaps have proceeded to greater violences, had not Natura, by main force, with-held him, while her mother, tho’ little less incensed against her, dragged her in a manner out of the room, more dead than alive.