Page:"The Mummy" Volume 2.djvu/237

Rh could get out of it without the keeper's permission."

"What is to be done, then?" cried Edric.

"Ay," returned the doctor; "what, indeed! However, it is certainly a great comfort to have a companion in one's misery; and though my prospects are certainly not much improved since you joined me, my cares are lessened at least one-half."

"Oh! my poor father!" exclaimed Edric. "The hardest part of my fate seems to die without obtaining his forgiveness! Alas! if he could see me now, he would surely repent his ill-timed severity. Fain would I also know what has passed in England since we left it: if Edmund be married, and if Claudia still reigns. It was spring when we left England, it is now winter: alas! alas! how many changes this brief space of time may have produced. If, however, my father's life has been spared, I care not for the rest."

"How little did we anticipate," said the doctor, "when we first proposed to travel, the misfortunes that were to attend us! Alas! they seem a just punishment for our crime, in