s conflict in his
bosom. Monimia rushed upon his imagination in the character of innocence
betrayed by the insinuations of treachery. He with horror viewed her at
the mercy of a villain, who had broken all the ties of gratitude and
honour.

Affrighted at the prospect, he started from his seat, exclaiming, in the
most unconnected strain of distraction and despair, "Have I then
nourished a serpent in my bosom! Have I listened to the voice of a
traitor, who hath murdered my peace! who hath torn my heart-strings
asunder, and perhaps ruined the pattern of all earthly perfection. It
cannot be. Heaven would not suffer such infernal artifice to take
effect. The thunder would be levelled against the head of the accursed
projector."

From this transport, compared with his agitation when he mentioned
Monimia, his sister judged that Fathom had been the occasion of a breach
between the two lovers; and this conjecture being confirmed by the
disjointed answers he made to her interrogations upon the affair, she
endeavoured to calm his apprehensions, by representing that he would soon
have an opportunity of returning to England, where the misunderstanding
might be easily cleared up; and that, in the meantime, he had nothing to
fear on account of the person of his mistress, in a country where
individuals were so well protected by the laws and constitution of the
realm. At length he suffered himself to be flattered with the fond hope
of seeing Monimia's character triumph in the inquiry, of retrieving that
lost jewel, and of renewing that ravishing intercourse and exalted
expectation which had been so cruelly cut off. He now wished to find
Fathom as black as he had been exhibited, that Monimia's apostasy might
be numbered among the misrepresentations of his treachery and fraud.

His love, which was alike generous and ardent, espoused the cause, and he
no longer doubted her constancy and virtue. But when he reflected how
her tender heart must have been wrung with anguish at his unkindness and
cruelty, in leaving her destitute in a foreign land; how her sensibility
must have been tortured in finding herself altogether dependent upon a
ruffian, who certainly harboured the most baleful designs upon her
honour; how her life must be endangered both by his barbarity and her own
despair--I say, when he reflected on these circumstances, he shuddered
with horror and dismay; and that very night despatched a letter to his
friend the Jew, e