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168 WILLIAM CONGREVE [ACT Iv<br />
licence to make trial of your wife's suspected virtue? D'ye<br />
see here? fSnatches the letter as in anger.] Look, read it?<br />
Gads my life, if I thought it were so, I would this moment<br />
renounce all communication with you! Ungrateful monster !<br />
he? is it so? ay, I see it, a plot upon my honour; your guilty<br />
cheeks confess it. Dh where shall wronged virtue fly for<br />
reparation! I'll be divorced this instant!<br />
Sir Paul. Gadsbud! what shall I say? this is the strangest<br />
surprise! Why I don't know anything at all, nor I don't<br />
know whether there be anything at all in the world or no.<br />
Lady Ply. I thought I should try you, false man! I that<br />
never dissembled in my life, yet to make trial of you, pretended<br />
to like that monster of iniquity, Careless, and found<br />
out that contrivance to let you see this letter; which now I<br />
find was of your own inditing;—I do, heathen, I do!—See<br />
my face no more, T'll be divorced presently!<br />
Sir Paul. D strange, what will become of me!—I'm so<br />
amazed and so overjoyed, so afraid, and so sorry.—But did<br />
you give me this letter on purpose, he? did you?<br />
Lady Ply. Did I! do you doubt me, Turk, Saracen? I have<br />
a cousin that's a proctor in the Commons, I'll go to him<br />
instantly.<br />
Sir Paul. Hold! stay! I beseech your ladyship! Fm so<br />
overjoyed, stay, I'll confess all.<br />
Lady Ply. What will you confess, Jew?<br />
Sir Paul. Why now, as I hope to be saved, I had no<br />
hand in this letter.—Nay hear me, I beseech your ladyship:<br />
the devil take me now if he did not go beyond my commission.—If<br />
I desired him to do any more than speak a good<br />
word only just for me; gadsbud, only for poor Sir Paul, I'm<br />
an Anabaptist, or a lew, or what you please to call me.<br />
Lady Ply. Why, is not here matter of fact?<br />
Sir Paul. Ay, but bv your own virtue and contincncy, that<br />
matter of fact is all his own doin^.—I confess I had a great<br />
desire to have some honours conferred upon me, which lie<br />
all in your ladyship's breast, and he being a well-spoken<br />
man, I desired him to intercede for me.<br />
Lady Ply. Did you so, presumption!-—Oh, he comes! the<br />
Tarquin comes! I cannot bear his sight. [Exit.<br />
Re-enter CARELESS.<br />
Care. Sir Paul, I'm glad I'm mrt with you: 'gad, I have-
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