Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/214

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Ambrose only admitted to visit the convent, to which he is confessor. As your wife is in that retirement, be assured she is dead to you. Those that enter that house seldom return again to the world."

"Distraction!" cried Ferdinand; "but my child, they cannot keep my child from me!"—"At a certain age she may make her own election: Mean time you may represent the case to the Bishop, that is all you can do, having taken sanctuary in the bosom of the church, and the child being at this age more immediately under the care of its mother; at present, you cannot oblige her to resign it." Observing that Ferdinand appeared overwhelmed with vexation, he went on.

"The building you have mentioned, so buried from all observation, was once, I have heard, a most superb mansion, inhabited by one of the Bavarian family, who marrying an heiress of a Suabian Baron, came into the possession of that estate which has long fallen into decay, nor did I ever hear that it had