Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 3).djvu/47

 repose, before I was informed a man on horseback at the door had brought a packet for me. I snatched it with trembling eagerness. It was the Count's writing: Even now I sicken at the recollection of what my feelings were, when I perused the contents. Indeed, I could not get through the whole, before I lost my senses, having just time to pull the bell, as I found myself sinking from my chair.

Let me briefly hurry over this part of my story, so dreadful even at this distance of time, that I wonder my life or reason had not been the sacrifice to such inhuman baseness. The letter informed me—

"That his father, having in the most peremptory manner forbidden our marriage, in consequence of an engagement he had entered into with another family, and also because of the insuperable aversion he entertained for Mr. Hautweitzer; he (the Count) was inexpressibly grieved to acquaint me, that in obedience to the author of his being, he was compelled, though with ex-