Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/79



CHAP. V.

from a noble and an opulent family, Count Renaud succeeded to the estates of his ancestors at the age of five-and-twenty: Two years previous to which he had, to please his family, married a Lady of noble birth and great riches, her only recommendations. Proud, fastidious, and violent, she sought, by the haughtiness of her demeanour, to exact that respect and servility as substitutes for veneration and esteem, to which her manners and conduct laid no claims. The Count, who had another attachment, conscious that he was deficient