Notwithstanding all this excellence, Abstemia has the misfortune to incur the unmerited jealousy of her husband. Instead, however, of resenting his harsh treatment with clamorous upbraidings, and with the stormy violence of high, windy virtue, by which the sparks of anger are so often blown into a flame, she endures it with the meekness of conscious, but patient, virtue; and makes the following beautiful appeal to a friend who has witnessed her long suffering: ------Hast thou not seen me Bear all his injuries, as the ocean suffers The angry bark to plough through her bosom, And yet is presently so smooth, the eye Cannot perceive where the wide wound was made? Lorenzo, being wrought on by false representations, at length repudiates her. To the last, however, she maintains her patient sweetness, and her love for him, in spite of his cruelty. She deplores his error, even more than his unkindness; and laments the delusion which has turned his very affection into a source of bitterness. There is a moving pathos in her parting address to Lorenzo, after their divorce: ------Farewell, Lorenzo, Whom my soul doth love: if you e'er marry, May you meet a good wife; so good, that you May not suspect her, nor may she be worthy Of your suspicion; and if you hear hereafter That I am dead, inquire but my last words, And you shall know that to the last I lov'd you. And when you walk forth with your second choice Into the pleasant fields, and by chance talk of me, Imagine that you see me, lean and pale, Strewing your path with flowers.-- But may she never live to pay my debts: (_weeps_) If but in thought she wrong you, may she die In the conception of the injury. Pray make me wealthy with one kiss: farewell, sir: Let it not grieve you when you shall remember That I was innocent: nor this forget, Though innocence here suffer, sigh, and groan, She walks but thorow thorns to find a throne. In a short time Lorenzo discovers his error, and the innocence of his injured wife. In the transports of his repentance, he calls to mind all her feminine excellence; her gentle, uncomplaining, womanly fortitude under wrongs and sorrows: ------Oh, Abstemia! How lovely thou lookest now! now thou appearest Chaster than is the morning's modesty That rises with a blush, over whose bosom The western wind creeps softly; now I remember How, when she sat at table, her obedient eye Would dwell on mine, as if it were not well, Unless it look'd where I look'd: oh how proud She was, when she could cross herself to please me! But where now is this fair soul? Like a silver cloud She hath wept herself, I fear, into the dead sea. And will be found no more.