Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/63

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gone. Again Eugenia exerted her eloquence, her tears. I heard her unmoved, and turning from them, "Now then, wretches, you can feel, now you know what it is to mourn as I have done; may the loss of your dearest hopes revenge my injuries."

I returned to my apartment exquisitely gratified. The following night I repeated my visit; there, on her bed of straw, lay the once captivating Eugenia, pale, dishevelled, her voice choked with sighs and tears, her late beautiful child consuming by a fever, and gasping for life, the Count stretched on the bare ground in silent agony, incapable of assisting those objects so dear to him! O, what a luxury of revenge!

When I drew near, before the mother could speak, the child extended its feeble hand, "Water, water, mamma!" Eugenia started, hastily reached to take the jug; her weak and tremulous hand, too eager to grasp the prize, dropped it between us! She