Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/131

This page needs to be proofread.

my breast; yet I feared to breathe upon you lest I should injure you. I kneeled down, and gazed upon you till my sight grew dim! With difficulty the monk could tear me away. When he did, he would have reconducted me to my dungeon, but I pushed him aside, and again rushed to the chamber of death. For a long time I resisted his entreaties to leave it; nor should I at last, I believe, have been prevailed on to do so, had not the Earl at length bent his knee to me: I could not refuse the kneeling father of my Geraldine; and half-dragged, half-supported by the monk, I descended to my prison. Oh! what a night was that which followed the knowledge of my Geraldine's death: on the damp ground I lay stretched, and the gloomy echoes of the vaults were awakened by my moans!

"But I will not, by any longer dwelling on my feelings, lengthen out my story. It was determined that I should remain in my present situation during the life of the Earl, and, after his decease, seek another asylum