Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/197

This page needs to be proofread.

sity of my passions. You speak not, you ask not after Claudina, yet surely her strange conduct, her sudden disappearance, must sometimes have a place in your thoughts.—Did you never in my absence make any inquiries concerning her?"

"Why should I?" answered he, in a quick tone, "What expectations could I form, that, if she absented herself from you, any information would be granted to me?—In short, brother, I wish you to forget an ungrateful woman, and therefore I never shall revive the subject." Supper being then announced precluded farther conversation, and Ferdinand retired early to his apartment.

He retired, but not to sleep; a thousand bitter thoughts obtruded to agonize his mind; he had carefully examined Rhodophil; he saw confusion, restlessness and perturbation, in every word and look; there was a mystery hung about him that he could not penetrate; yet he saw enough to convince him there existed no brotherly affection in the Count, and