Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 4).djvu/302

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venting another disappointment relative to the fortune of Montmorenci: her father's death he would not have delayed an hour, but that he was withheld from it, by considering, if artifice failed with Madeline, fears for her father might accomplish his designs. In the house of Madame Fleury, he knew any scene of iniquity might be acted with impunity. She was a woman of the most infamous description, and avowedly kept a house for the encouragement of vice. Beneath her roof the innocent and lovely Adelaide lost her life; bribed to the horrid deed by D'Alembert, the owner of the inn at which she slept put her into his power, and, on finding no other way of escaping his violence, she stabbed herself to the heart with a knife which she concealed about her; her body was thrown into a vault beneath the house; and it was the traces of her blood which had so much alarmed Madeline. Blanche, the once faithful servant of her mother's, was the unhappy penitent she discovered before the crucifix: the seeds of