Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 4).djvu/163

 crime leads to a thousand others, and that when a man has made his mind familiar with guilt, he proceeds on to the most detestable actions, and plunges headlong into the blackest enormities! Gracious Heaven! that jealousy and avarice should gradually tend to robbery and murder!

"I would prepare you, Sir, for the scenes you must witness, and the shocking discovery that will wound every feeling of your heart; but I know not where or how to begin, the packet must speak for itself."

"What packet?" demanded Ferdinand.

"It was written and delivered by Madam Claudina to my uncle, with a strict charge not to deliver it to you till after her death, and then you was to have it without delay.

"This packet my uncle entrusted, sealed up, to me for you, lest death should suddenly cut him off, and his papers fall under the inspection of his master. When Madam Claudina was seized with her last illness, the consequence of the general report, and belief of