Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 2).djvu/120

 seek not to see me. The gardener, who undertakes to deliver this, is dismissed, and we have nothing to hope from that quarter. The man engaged in his place is of incorruptible fidelity. The best means of conveying to me your answer, is by concealing it under the great statue of St. Francis, which stands in the Capuchin cathedral; thither I go every Thursday to confession, and shall easily have an opportunity of securing your letter. I hear that you are now absent from Madrid. Need I entreat you to write the very moment of your return? I will not think it. Ah! Raymond! mine is a cruel situation! Deceived by my nearest relations, compelled to embrace a profession the duties of which I am ill calculated to perform, conscious of the sanctity of those duties, and seduced into violating them by one whom I least suspected of perfidy, I am now obliged, by circumstances, to choose between death and perjury. Woman's timidity, and maternal affection, permit me not to balance in the choice. I feel all the guilt into which I