Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/173

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most opportunely to my relief; I must leave this house to-morrow, indeed I must; the arrival of that good old man has recalled to my mind past scenes that overwhelm me with distress; I shall relapse into sorrow or madness if haunted with recollections that pain me to my very soul; a fugitive daughter, whose conduct perhaps hastened a parent's death, who died without blessing or forgiving me; he might be arbitrary, prejudiced and cruel, but he was my father, to whose goodness I owed every comfort in life, and to whose tenderness, to whose parental care of me in my infancy, I was indebted for my very existence: What sacrifices had not such a parent a right to demand? And what has been the consequences of my resistance to his will?"

Here she wept aloud. This was a subject that wrung the heart of Ferdinand, every word had sunk into his soul, and painful retrospections darted into his mind—Observing his silence, Eugenia resumed her discourse:—-