Reason and thought at last returned; she opened her eyes, she knew to what the rapture she had been in had exposed her, and was struck with the most poignant shame and horror:--she broke with all her force from that strict embrace in which he had continued to hold her; and being withdrawn to the farther corner of the closet,--'What have I done,' cried she, 'What have I done!'--these words she repeated several times, and accompanied them with tears, wringing her hands, and every testimony of remorse.--It was in vain for him to attempt to pacify her, much less to prevail on her to suffer any second proofs of his tenderness;--she would not even give him leave to touch her hand, and on his offering it, pushed him back, saying, 'No, stranger! you have taken the advantage of my _insensibility_ but shall never triumph over my _reason_, which enables me to hate you,--to fly from you for ever, as from a serpent.' Natura said every thing that love and wit could inspire, to reconcile her to what had past; but she remained inflexible, and only condescended to request him to leave the place before the opera was ended, that they might not be seen coming out together, and that he would tell signior Carrana, that having unexpectedly found a lady in the box, he had withdrawn without entering.--He then begged she would entertain a more favourable opinion of an action, which her beauty, the bewitching softness of the entertainment, and the place they were in, had all concurred to make him guilty of; but she would listen to nothing on that head, insisted on his never taking the least notice of her, wherever they might chance to meet; and only told him, that tho' she was unalterably fixed in this resolution, yet he might depend upon it she hated him less than she did herself. Finding she was not to be moved, he obeyed her commands, and straight went out of the box, more amazed at the oddness of the adventure, than can be well expressed; and yet more so, when he afterwards heard she was the wife of a person of great condition, was in the first month of her marriage with him, and had the reputation of a woman of strict virtue. As this false step was meerly accidental, wholly unpremeditated on either side, and by what can be judged by the character of the lady, and her behaviour afterwards, was no more on her part than a surprize on the senses, in which the mind was not consulted, and had not the least share, I know not whether it may not more justly be called a slip of unguarded nature, than a real crime in her; and as for Natura, though certainly the most guilty of the two, whoever considers his youth, his constitution, and above all the greatness of the temptation, which presented itself before him, will allow, that he must either have been _more_, or _less_, than _man_, to have behaved otherwise than he did.