Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/172

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ignorance of the world only could have prompted; for a heart occupied by avarice and ambition, as was the Marquis's, is ever dead to the nobler softer claims of justice and humanity.

"As St. Julian departed, he told me he would give me a day or two to consider of what he had said; if at the expiration of that time he found me inclined to accede to his wishes, he would at once secure to me the provision he had promised; but if, on the contrary, he found me still inclined to dispute them, he would, without farther hesitation abandon me to a world which would laugh at all the allegations I could make against him.

"I saw no time was to be lost; the moment therefore he had left me I stole from the house, and hired a carriage, which I ordered to meet me at an early hour, the next morning, at the end of the street. Faint, trembling, oppressed with a thousand horrors, I commenced my journey with you in my arms.