Angelina: Or, The Mystery of St. Mark's Abbey — page 169: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

156 ANGELINA$ OR, She clasped her hands as she gave utterance to these ejaculatione, and tra. versed the chamber with hasty and disordered steps, and the violence of her emotions for a while completely choked her utterance. “ Clifford, too !’’ she exclaimed, with frantic agony at length, and a deadly chill ran through her heart when she thought of his name; ‘‘alas! what is your fate !—What has become of you ?—Have you fallen by the hands of the wretches ?—Oh, Heaven! this thought is madness! Dear, dear youth, had it not been for me, you would have been spared this dreadful fate; but sorrow and suffering seem to be the lot of all who take any interest in my misfortunes, and endeavour to rescue me from heartless and unmerited cruelty. Oh, Clif- ford ! never, in this world, shall we meet again, and cruel destiay, which for- bade us to love each other, will thus be satisfied.”’ ‘ Once more did her tears flow more copiously than ever, but they were shed for Hough Clifford, whose fate was so uncertain, and not for herself. She re- membered all the tender asseverations he had given utterance to at their differ- ent interviews; the earnest and fervent vows of unutterable affection he had spoken, and the soft eloquence with which his tongue had spoken the language of love ; his generous interposition when danger threatened her, and his agony, his intense agony when told by her uncle and Kate of the Ruins, that they must love no more. There was not the most trifling circumstance connected with him and the ardent passion which they had imbibed for one another, which did not at that moment rush to her memory, and increased the bitter anguish of her soul. But what was the fate of Hugh Clifford? This was a question which racked her brain to madness, and which she had no means of satisfactorily answering. At first, nhe dreaded that he had fallen by the hands of the ruffians on the spot where her seizure had taken place; bat when she remembered the words which Ruthven had spoken, and the orders he had given to the villains who had him in their charge, this idea was banished from her mind, although she had not the least deubt but that he was still held in confinement; and when she reflected upon the dreadful tortures to which his enemies would put him, the terrors of her situation became more unendurable, and she wrung her hands, and smote her breast with the intensity of her anguish. She now recollected the noise and confusion he had heard soon after she had been brought into the old Grey Tower, and a thought struck her that her lover was confined in the same terrible place. This imagination was too pro- bable for her easily to rejec it, and again did she groan aloud with the horror excited by the idea of the duffering he would there, doubtless, be fated to endure. From this, her thoughts once more reverted to the unfortunate Bridget, and nothing could exceed the power of her anguish, when she recalled to her memory the appalling spectacle she presented, and that it was, without doubt, her interference to release her from the power of the Baron de Morton, which had brought down upon her the shocking punishment to which our heroine had been a witness she was suffering. ** Oh, horror!” gasped forth the hapless damsel, “she will perish !—She caa- not long survive, subjected to such insupportable sufferings, and I shall ever accuse myself of being the cause of her untimely death!—Merciful Heaven! look down upon .me with compassion, and, at any rate, release those from misery who are suffering for my sake.” COMIC OOOKS. EO