Page:The Castle of Wolfenbach - Parsons - 1854.djvu/138

 for God's sake assist her to her apartment. He seemed to hesitate, but she urging her request, between them I was conveyed to the bed, and without any other assistance than her's delivered of a boy. When a little recovered, the Count entered the room, Peter with him. "I do not design to destroy you; no, you may live a life of horror, but dead to all the world; yet your infant shall be sacrificed." I screamed,—I cried for mercy to my child and instant death to me. He paused and I expected the welcome stroke at last; "On one condition your child may live." "Oh! name it, (I said;) any conditions." "Remember what you say you shall join with these two persons, in taking a solemn oath, with the sacrament, that without my permission, you will never reveal the transactions of this night and day—never mention the Chevalier's name, nor ever presume to contradict the report I shall make of your death to the world." I shuddered, but alas! there was no alternative; he fetched a prayer-book, and making the two poor creatures kneel, we all joined in the solemn oath, and received the sacrament from his polluted hands. Methinks at this moment I tremble at the impiety of that horrid wretch. My child was delivered to me; Peter was ordered to assist Margarite in making a fire and getting necessaries for me. How I survived such horrors is astonishing! The curtains were drawn, and that night the body was removed, but where it was carried to, heaven only knows, for Margarite never was informed. A coffin and every necessary for a funeral was bespoke and brought home. It was given out I had died in child-bed, and therefore in decency my own women only could attend me. A figure or bundle, wrapt in a sheet, was placed in the coffin, (Margarite used to think it was the Chevalier's body) and the whole ceremony took place without any one's presuming to doubt the truth. Judge what must have been my feelings, and what an excellent constitution I must