Page 279 (1/2)

He turned to his wife, who had now recovered her spirits, and who

vehemently and wildly ree heightened with her indignation, and E

the event of it, threw herself between the up in his face with an expression, that ht have

softened the heart of a fiend Whether his was hardened by a conviction

of Madauilt, or that a bare suspicion of it eance, he was totally and alike insensible to the

distress of his wife, and to the pleading looks of Emily, who both, when he was

called out of the room by some person at the door As he shut the door,

Emily heard him turn the lock and take out the key; so that Madame

Montoni and herself were now prisoners; and she saw that his designs

became more and more terrible

Her endeavours to explain his motives

for this circumstance were almost as ineffectual as those to sooth the

distress of her aunt, whose innocence she could not doubt; but she, at

length, accounted for Montoni's readiness to suspect his wife by his own

consciousness of cruelty towards her, and for the sudden violence of

his present conduct against both, before even his suspicions could be

coerness to effect suddenly whatever