Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 1).djvu/228

 perately wounded. The rest had expired beneath the swords of the robbers, and of these my unhappy Stephano was one.

Alarmed at our escape, the robbers, in their haste to overtake us, had neglected to visit the cottage; in consequence, the soldiers found the two waiting-women unhurt, and buried in the same death-like slumber which had overpowered their mistress. There was nobody else found in the cottage, except a child not above four years old, which the soldiers brought away with them. We were busying ourselves with conjectures respecting the birth of this little unfortunate, when Marguerite rushed into the room with the baby in her arms. She fell at the feet of the officer who was making us this report, and blessed him a thousand times for the preservation of her child.

When the first burst of maternal tenderness was over, I besought her to declare by what means she had been united to a man whose principles seemed so totally discordant with her own. She bent her eyes downwards, and wiped a few tears from her cheek.