Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/226

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his reception there, and at the Friar's monastery; adding, "You see my wife will afford me no sort of satisfaction, and her message is as extraordinary and inexplicable as her whole conduct."

The old man sighed deeply: "I pity you (said he) not for your present disappointment, but because you are young, and must feel, poignantly feel, the stings of ingratitude, and the destruction of those sanguine hopes of happiness you had figured to yourself in an union with the object of your choice, and who, I have little doubt of pronouncing, has proved unworthy of your attachment."

"How! (exclaimed Ferdinand) do you believe my wife is criminal?"

"Hath she not confessed as much?" replied the other.

"Impossible!" said Ferdinand, "she had no acquaintance, no man visited her, in my absence she resided with my brother, who lived very retired; impossible she could wrong me."