Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 3).djvu/212

 and without a friend to close their eyes, or speak one word of consolation in that awful moment, when the retrospection of a misspent life, fills them with unutterable sorrow and despair.

"Surely," thought Ferdinand, on reviewing this melancholy picture, which his misfortunes delineated to his mind's eye in the most gloomy colouring; "surely, if the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children, I am marked out as an object for retribution and vengeance. How far my marriage with Claudina may be criminal, I know not.That union, so rashly entered into, and followed by a father's curses, wants not the aggravation of criminality to add to my wretchedness; and if she is a lost, a guilty creature, the sins of the mother have fallen upon us both."

These, and such like reflections, threw him into a profound reverie, from which he was roused by the entrance of the Count.

"I left you, for a few moments, my dear Ferdinand," said he, "because I thought you