awaiting her return Camilla continued, as
if speaking to herself, "Good God! would it not have been more prudent to
have repulsed Lothario, as I have done many a time before, than to allow
him, as I am now doing, to think me unchaste and vile, even for the short
time I must wait until I undeceive him? No doubt it would have been
better; but I should not be avenged, nor the honour of my husband
vindicated, should he find so clear and easy an escape from the strait
into which his depravity has led him. Let the traitor pay with his life
for the temerity of his wanton wishes, and let the world know (if haply
it shall ever come to know) that Camilla not only preserved her
allegiance to her husband, but avenged him of the man who dared to wrong
him. Still, I think it might be better to disclose this to Anselmo. But
then I have called his attention to it in the letter I wrote to him in
the country, and, if he did nothing to prevent the mischief I there
pointed out to him, I suppose it was that from pure goodness of heart and
trustfulness he would not and could not believe that any thought against
his honour could harbour in the breast of so stanch a friend; nor indeed
did I myself believe it for many days, nor should I have ever believed it
if his insolence had not gone so far as to make it manifest by open
presents, lavish promises, and ceaseless tears. But why do I argue thus?
Does a bold determination stand in need of arguments? Surely not. Then
traitors avaunt! Vengeance to my aid! Let the false one come, approach,
advance, die, yield up his life, and then befall what may. Pure I came to
him whom Heaven bestowed upon me, pure I shall leave him; and at the
worst bathed in my own chaste blood and in the foul blood of the falsest
friend that friendship ever saw in the world;" and as she uttered these
words she paced the room holding the unsheathed dagger, with such
irregular and disordered steps, and such gestures that one would have
supposed her to have lost her senses, and taken her for some violent
desperado instead of a delicate woman.

Anselmo, hidden behind some tapestries where he had concealed himself,
beheld and was amazed at all, and already felt that what he had seen and
heard was a sufficient answer to even greater suspicions; and he would
have been now well pleased if the proof afforded by Lothario's coming
were dispensed with, as he feared some sudden mishap; but as he was on
the point of showing himself and comi