lamented Chevalier, and perhaps may irritate him never to inform me whether my child exists or not—Alas! every way I turn is replete with difficulties and horror."
Here the Countess stopped, leaving her auditors overcome with astonishment and terror.
"Good heavens! (said the Marquis) I never could have supposed it possible a man should carry jealousy and revenge to such frightful guilty lengths, and the whole story appears incredible and almost impossible, that he should proceed so far, trust so many with his secret, and that you should remain such a number of years a victim to his diabolical passions, when there was always, open to you the means for escaping and appealing to your friends." "Consider, my good brother, (said she) the difficulties, the oaths I had taken never to leave the Castle without his permission, the fate of my child, the certainty that every step I took was known, otherwise I could have offered Matilda an asylum with me, but he assured me I was constantly watched, and therefore any attempts I might make to free myself, would, too probably accelerate the events I dreaded, and my life (as I doubt not was intended, when he carried me to the wood) would have been the sacrifice. If you look back, you will observe his cunning: when he afterwards came to the Castle and saw Joseph, he did not mention my name, and to be sure expected that he would have told him of my being carried away by some banditti, as he doubtless intended Joseph should believe, but the old man being silent, he supposed he was suspected as the author of the outrage, and therefore determined to put that witness out of the way———"
"What a villain! (cried Mrs. Courtney) and what a wretched life that man must have endured, with such fears of detection, and conscious of such complicated wickedness." "It is ever the fate of villainy (said the Marchioness) to plunge deeper into
