secret yet more important than mine? You need not apprehend that I will ever divulge it. Oreston’s death is an eternal barrier betwixt the world and me. The secret of your woe, which I desired to be acquainted with, and for your sake, not for mine, would have been deposited in my husband’s tomb, with his faithful widow, and your sincere friend.
I hope, said Fonrose, it will be my fate to die first. Ah! madam, let me end my deplorable life, without leaving yon to reproach yourself with having shortened it. O heavens! she cried, what, I? Can I have contributed to increase the woes under which you perish. Ease my tortured heart, and tell me what I have said, what I have done to aggravate your affliction! Speak, I say, you have revealed too much to hide yourself any longer—I do insist upon knowing who yon are. Sinco you will force from me so peremptorily tho fatal secret, know that I am— that I am Fonrose, the son of those you lately filled with admiration and respect. All that I have heard them relate of your virtue and your charms, inspired me with the rash design of seeing you under this disguise. I have seen you, and my fate is fixed. I have left my family in the deepest distress. They think that I am for ever lost: they lament my death. I know what is your attachment here; and I have no other hope but to die adoring you. Forbear to give me any useless advice: my resolution is as immoveable as your own. If by betraying my confidence you divulgo my secret, you will only disturb the last ebbings of my declining life, and will have to impute my death to yourself. Astonished at what she had heard, Adelaide endeavoured to soothe young Fonrose’s despair. I will restore him, said she, to his afflicted parents, and save their only hope from death. Heaven has procured me this opportunity to acknowledge their goodness: wherefore she diligently employed every means the most insinuating friend could suggest to calm and most him. Sweet angel! cried Fonrose, I see with what reluctance you are forced to make any one wretched; your
