Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/71

67 some severe punishment, as some of my companions would have complained of me. All the way up the staircase, Saint Frances spoke not a word, nor made the slightest resistance. When we entered the room to which she was ordered, my heart sunk within me. The Bishop, the Lady Superior, and five priests, viz.; Bonin, Richards, Savage, and two others, were assembled for trial, on some charge of great importance.

Father Richards questioned her, and she made ready, but calm replies. I cannot give a connected account of what ensued: my feelings were wrought up to such a pitch, that I knew not what I did. I was under a terrible apprehension that, if I betrayed my feelings I should fall under the displeasure of the cold-blooded persecutors of my poor innocent sister; and this fear and the distress I felt for her, rendered me almost frantic. As soon as I entered the room, I stepped into a corner, on the left of the entrance, where I might partially support myself by leaning against the wall. This support prevented me falling to the floor; for the confusion of my thoughts was so great, that only a few of the words I heard made any lasting impression upon me. I felt as if death would not have been more frightful to me. I am inclined to think that Father Richards wished to shield the poor prisoner from the severity of her fate, by drawing from her expressions that might bear a favourable construction. He asked her, among other things, if she was not now sorry for what she had been overheard to say, (she had been betrayed in by a nun,) and if she would not prefer confinement in the cells to the punishment threatened. But the Bishop soon interrupted him, and it was easy to perceive, that he was determined she should not escape. In reply to some of the questions she was silent; to other I heard her reply that she did not repent of the words she had uttered, though they had been reported by some of the nuns who had heard them; that she had firmly resolved to resist every