Page:Dramas 3.pdf/10

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8
WITCHCRAFT: A TRAGEDY.


ANNABELLA (alone, after a thoughtful pause).

Ay, if there be in reality such supernatural agency, by which a breast fraught with passion and misery may find relief. (Starting back.) Dreadful resource! I may not be so assisted. (After walking to and fro in great perturbation.) Oh, Dungarren, Dungarren! that a paltry girl, who is not worthy to be my tirewoman, the orphan of a murderer—a man disgraced, who died in a pit and was buried in a moor; one whose very forehead is covered with blushing shame when the eye of an irreproachable gentle-woman looks upon her; whose very voice doth alter and hesitate when a simple question of her state or her family is put to her,—that a creature thus naturally formed to excite aversion and contempt should so engross thy affections! It makes me mad!——"May not be so assisted!" Evil is but evil, and torment is but torment!—I have felt both—I have felt them to extremity? what have I then to fear? (Starts on hearing the door open behind her, as Phemy enters.) Who is there?

PHEMY.

Only me, madam.

ANNABELLA.

What brings thee here?