Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 4).djvu/176

 "Those bequests were not much in comparison to what I became heir to, but it made you independent, and that was death to me.

"I sounded the clerk; I found him fit for my purpose; he was friendless and venal. The will was destroyed. I kept every one from the room till my father expired; the rest you know.

"Then to complete my revenge I had you at the Castle.

"I poisoned the mind of Claudina; I told a thousand falsehoods; you assisted my designs by going to the army; I made her believe you repented of your marriage, which occasioned your melancholy; in short I succeeded, I corrupted her mind, and dishonoured her person.

"Revenge was complete—she was pregnant—you returning—I sought to persuade her to destroy the child—she was taken ill—miscarried—and all we thought was well.

"You returned; the voice, which she thought supernatural, threw her into horrors.