Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 4).djvu/196

 him of the dignity of her mind, and what struggles she was capable of, to afford him peace.

Four days of painful suspense they had endured, in which the delicate frame of Miss d'Allenberg seemed to be falling a sacrifice to the strength of her mind, and the assumption of a fortitude her spirits but ill supplied. They were sitting at the dinner table when the return of a messenger was announced; she turned faint and sick.

"I will retire, if you please," said she to her father, and accompanied by her two friends, tottered out of the room.

With difficulty, they preserved her from fainting.

"I shall soon know the worst," said she, "and that is some degree of ease from this dreadful uncertainty. If he lives, I am indifferent as to myself; for where there is no expectation, there can be no disappointment."

Her trembling frame spoke the agitations of her heart, when suddenly the door opened,