Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 3).djvu/87

 brook. At length, returning it to my father—"I am sorry the wild chimeras of your daughter should have engaged you in such a fruitless journey. Be assured, she never was the wife of my son, although it is very natural a young lady should wish to throw a veil over her own frailty." My father instantly took fire.—"How dare you," cried he, "insinuate the smallest reflection on the character of my child; her only act of frailty was in supposing truth or honour could inhabit the bosom of a son of your's; but her honour is unblemished, without any stain, but what must follow in being the wife of a villain."

He had raised his voice to a pitch of fury. The other, equally exasperated, exclaimed, "Your daughter was preserved from want and infamy, by my son. Yes," added he, "after having prostituted herself to him, he placed her in a convent, to preserve her from the vilest degradation." My unhappy father, raised almost to a state of madness, forgot every thing at that moment, sprung forwards,