Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 1).djvu/129

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

(121)

once expressive both of surprise and of sorrow.

"Be calm, my friend! my Rosario! still let me call you by that name so dear to me: our separation is unavoidable; I blush to own how sensibly it affects me.—But yet it must be so; I feel myself incapable of treating you with indifference; and that very conviction obliges me to insist upon your departure. Matilda, you must stay here no longer."

"Oh! where shall I now seek for probity? Disgusted with a perfidious world, in what happy region does Truth conceal herself? Father, I hoped that she resided here; I thought that your bosom had been her favourite shrine. And you too prove false? Oh God! and you too can betray me?"

"Matilda?"

"Yes, father, yes; 'tis with justice that I reproach you. Oh! where are your promises? My noviciate is not expired, and yet will you compel me to quit the monastery? Can you have the heart to drive mefrom