Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 2).djvu/96

 count for this? What means that burning cross upon your forehead, and why did the sight of it strike such horror to my soul?"

On these points he for some time refused to satisfy me. At length, overcome by my entreaties, he consented to clear up the whole, on condition that I would defer his explanation till the next day. With this request was obliged to comply, and he left me. In the morning my first care was to enquire after the mysterious stranger. Conceive my disappointment, when informed that he had already quitted Ratisbon. I dispatched messengers in pursuit of him, but in vain. No traces of the fugitive were discovered. Since that moment I never have heard any more of him, and 'tis most probable that I never shall."

[Lorenzo here interrupted his friend's narrative:

"How!" said he, "you have never discovered who he was, or even formed a guess?"

"Pardon me," replied the marquis: