Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 4).djvu/235

 wished to save her from disgrace, and have made her life comfortable; but she insisted upon rights which his duty to himself and his heirs would not permit him to allow of.

He passed a sleepless night.—"Foolish mortals as we are (said he) when pluming ourselves in a fancied security of happiness! here is a blow, which, if persisted in, must at least interrupt, if not annihilate all my hopes of future felicity with Miss D'Alenberg; for no compromise will I make, or enjoy a doubtful title to which I have no claim.—"Ah! (cried he) the sins of the fathers are multiplied upon their children! What a lesson to parents, what a pharos to the gay and dissipated of both sexes, when their crimes and follies are thus extended to their wretched posterity."

The morning came; he arose languid and unhappy; in vain the Count sought to disperse his gloomy ideas; every way he turned his thoughts, they were pregnant with trouble and vexation.