The ladies were all together, sitting in the parlour, each chusing rather to indulge her own private meditations, than to hold discourse with the others, when Mr. Goodman came home. Lady Mellasin ran to embrace him with a shew of the greatest tenderness; 'My dear Mr. Goodman,' cried she, 'how much I have suffered from my fear lest some ill accident should have befallen you!'--'The worst that could have happened has befallen me,' replied he, thrusting her from him; 'yet no more than what you might very reasonably expect would one day or another happen.'--'What do you mean, my dear?' said she, more alarmed at his words and looks than she made shew of. 'You may too easily inform yourself what it is I mean,' cried he, hastily, 'on the retrospect of your behaviour; I now find, but too late, how much I have been imposed upon. Did you not assure me,' continued he, somewhat more mildly, 'that you were free from all incumbrances but that girl, whom, since our marriage, I have tendered as my own?' And then perceiving she answered nothing, but looked pale, and trembled, he repeated to her the affront he had received; 'Which,' said he, 'in all my dealings in the world, would never have happened, but on your account.' Though Lady Mellasin had as much artifice, and the power of dissimulation, as any of her sex, yet she was at a loss thus taken unprepared. She hesitated, she stammered, and fain would have denied the having given any such bond; but, finding the proofs too plain against her, she threw herself at his feet, wept, and conjured him to forgive the only deception she had practised on him: 'It was a debt,' said she, 'contracted by my former husband, which I knew not of. I thought the effects he left behind him were more than sufficient to have discharged whatever obligations he lay under, and foolishly took out letters of administration. The demand of Marplus came not upon me till some time after; I then inconsiderately gave him my own bond, which he, however, promised not to put in force without previously acquainting me.' This excuse was too weak, as well as all the affection Mr. Goodman had for her, to pacify the emotions of his just indignation. 'And pray,' cried he, in a voice divided between scorn and anger, 'of what advantage would it have been to me your being previously acquainted with it? Could you have paid the money without robbing or defrauding me? No, Madam!' continued he, 'I shall for the future give credit to nothing you can say; and as I cannot be assured that this is the only misfortune I have to dread on your account, shall consider what steps I ought to take for my defence.'