uld animate my soul against all
the persecution of adverse fortune."

This declamation, accompanied with a profound sigh, served only to
inflame her desire of extricating him from the difficulty in which he was
involved. She exhausted all her eloquence in attempting to persuade him
that his refusal was an outrage against her affection. He pretended to
refute her arguments, and remained unshaken by all the power of her
solicitations, until she had recourse to the most passionate
remonstrances of love, and fell at his feet in the posture of a forlorn
shepherdess. What he refused to her reason, he granted to her tears,
because his heart was melted by her affliction, and next day condescended
to accept of her money, out of pure regard to her happiness and peace.

Encouraged by the success of this achievement, he resolved to practise
the same experiment upon Wilhelmina, in hope of extracting an equal share
of profit from her simplicity and attachment, and, at their very next
nocturnal rendezvous in her chamber, reacted the farce already rehearsed,
with a small variation, which he thought necessary to stimulate the young
lady in his behalf. He rightly concluded, that she was by no means
mistress of such a considerable sum as he had already extorted from her
mother, and therefore thought proper to represent himself in the most
urgent predicament, that her apprehension, on his account, might be so
alarmed as to engage her in some enterprise for his advantage, which
otherwise she would never have dreamed of undertaking. With this view,
after having described his own calamitous situation, in consequence of
her pressing entreaties, which he affected to evade, he gave her to
understand, that there was no person upon earth to whom he would have
recourse in this emergency; for which reason he was determined to rid
himself of all his cares at once, upon the friendly point of his own
faithful sword.

Such a dreadful resolution could not fail to operate upon the tender
passions of his Dulcinea; she was instantly seized with an agony of fear
and distraction. Her grief manifested itself in a flood of tears, while
she hung round his neck, conjuring him in the most melting terms, by
their mutual love, in which they had been so happy, to lay aside that
fatal determination, which would infallibly involve her in the same fate;
for, she took Heaven to witness, that she would not one moment survive
the knowledge of his death.

He was n