Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/355

 atrocious crime. My vengeance is now at an end. I have pardoned you."

At these words I presented my hand to her, which she covered with an hundred eager kisses. "Thanks to your generous forbearance," replied she, "towards a more misguided than criminal woman! Heaven will reward your virtue! for, alas! myself can do it no longer!"

She sobbed violently, and I began to dread for her life. In her first fit of despair, she wanted presence of mind for any resolution, but now the most poignant remorse made her be resigned to every thing. I trembled to see her absorbed in thought. The whole extent of her guilt, her forfeited happiness, her indelible disgrace, her future misery in being for ever banished from my sight and buried in the dreary shades of cloistered seclusion, thronged with bitterness into her mind. How fain would she have met instant destruction! I trembled at every convulsive motion of her body, lest she should make an attempt to put a period to her existence.