Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/177

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—"Horror for some time took from me the power of speech.

"Oh! St. Julian, (I at length exclaimed) is this the fate you have decreed for Madeline?—Is this the destiny you have doomed her to, whom but a few short months ago you wooed to your arms with vows of never-changing love?—Oh, never let my sex again confide in man!—Oh, never more let them gaze with pleasure upon the beam of tenderness, nor listen with delight to the language of love!'—

"On my knees I implored my informer to assist me to escape.

"Not on my own account (cried I) do I plead; stripes, dungeons, or perpetual imprisonment, could give little pain to her who has experienced the so much greater pain of being deserted by the man she loves; but on the account of him, who, if deprived of me, would surely be deprived of his only earthly friend; for those who exercised such unprecedented cruelty upon his mother, would no doubt but ill protect his helpless