Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/227

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her soft cheek), ever find a tender guardian in thy father; and may his sufferings and filial piety to me be amply recompensed by thy affection and duty!"


He seated them on each side of himself, and the violence of his feelings having a little abated, began, notwithstanding the avowed wishes of St. Julian to the contrary, the history of his repentance.


"The dreadful fate of my son made me recollect my past conduct; all its enormities stared me in the face, and I wondered that the punishment of heaven had been so long delayed. Oh! wretch, (I cried, in the excruciating anguish of my soul) thy crimes have at length justly provoked the vengeance of Heaven, and drawn down destruction upon the head of thy son!——

"The idea, that the sins of the father had been the occasion of the death of the son, almost shook Reason from her throne; horrors, beyond language to express, took possession