Agnes: A Tale of the Streets — page 18: what you’re looking at

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373 ‘her cloak as sho led the way from the apart- ment, “Whither are you going?” again asked the Countess, full of an intenso anxiety. “ You just now spoke with a mingled despondency and bit- terness in reference to your degraded posi- tion——” “And I am about to take the only step, Lucia, which oan possibly be adopted by one in my posi- tion.” “Holy saints! what mean you, sister~dear sister! do you—do you dare to think of suicide P” “No, Lucia!—or else I should not have thought it worth while to bring these blood-stained gar- ments with mo”—and she displayed the bundle from beneath her cloak—“ that I may safely dis- pose of such dread evidence: nor should I have been so cruel as to ask you, Lucia, to come and witness the catastrophe, And yet I am about to leave this world of strifo and wretchedness, of jarring interests and fiorce passions—a world in which when once tbe pathway of crime has been entered upon, it is impossible to make a safe re- treat !———- But hero let us pause for an instant.” A bridge was now reached: a portion of it was being repaired—and thero were piles of granite blocks and bricks on the sido of tho pathway. ‘The Princeas had noticed them when paying her visit to the convent of La Trinita. Sbe now stooped down; and oponing her bundle upon the pave- ment, enclosed a couple of bricks; for we should observe that she and her sister stood alone at that hour upon the bridge. In a few moments the blood-stained garments were consigned to the depths of the river that rolled beneath. “And now whither are you going, Bianca P” asked the Countess for the third time, as her sister, instead of beginning to retrace her steps, continued to lead the way across the bridge. ‘My destination is at no great distance,” re- phed the Princess. “ Did I not tell you, Lucia, that I was about to abandon a world wherein existence would be no longer tolerable for meP Aud yet it is not by means of suicide that I am about to escape this world!” - “Ab! methinks I understand, sister!” ox- claimed the Countess. “ But, Ob! is it possible that the blood upon those garments indicates crimes of ao deep a dye————” “Do not quostion me, Lucia!” said the Prin- cess, in an earnest tone: and then she continued in solemn accents to say, “ Rest assured, Lucia, that however great my crimes have beep, they will be fully atoned for, For it is to the peni- tence of thie living ‘tomb that I am about to con- sign myself:”—and at the same instant Bianca rang the bell of the convent at the’gate of which she abruptly stopped short as she thus spoke. The parting between the twain was brief but deeply affecting; and when Lucia tore herself weeping away from the spot; the massive portals of La Trinita closod upon Sister Agonia! AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE, CHAPTER LXV. THE PRISON-CHAMBER, We have often been necessitated in the courss of this narrative to describo phases of profound grief and affliction: but we are now perhaps nore than ever at a loss for language wherewith to convey an idea of the immensity of that woe and the wildness of that despair which were ex- perienced by Mrs. De Vere, when looking upon her son as a doomed being, beyond the reach of hope. Vainly did the young man summor ail his presence of mind to his aid, that he might sustain his unhappy mother and console her if possible. But consolation! Ob, the idea was preposterous! ILow could sho be solaced for the loss of the only being that on earth she loved,—= the only ono for whom she lived—the joy and the darling of her heart! To look beyond the moment which should snatch him from her, was to gaze upon a prospect so filled with horror and despair tbat the brain recled from the contemplation. And then, as she looked upon that strikingly handsome youth, with his slender figure of such perfect masculine symmetry—with bis dark hair clustering in ‘fatural curls about his well-shaped head—his countenance wearing such an ingenuous candour of expression,—his features so perfectly regular—his mouth so finely chiselled, and revealing aset of such brilliant toetb,—as the poor mother thus contemplated her son, we say, and beheld him in his Apollo-like beauty, and remembered that his years had only numbered twenty, she thought it absolutely impossible that any laws were so cruel or any human beings so merciless as to take away the life of one so handsome and so young! But, Ah! those dreamy intervals of doubt and, bewilderment wero quickly succeeded by periods of the most appalling certainty, when all the reality of the awful circumstances environing that bright and beautiful one could be no longer shut out from-her contemplation ! “Ob, my beloved boy!” exclaimed Mrs. Do Vere, in one of those moments when all tho violence of her distress burst forth, carrying her as it were to the very verge of madness: “I feel as if J, your own mother, have become your mur- Geress! Good God! if I had not spoken harshly to you in Ilorence, you would not have fled away —and you would never have become involved in those adventures which are fast leading to a hore rible catastrophe !” * Do not blame yourself, dearest mother,” said Charles, lavishing upon his afflicted parent the tenderest filial caresses. ‘Circumstances com- bined against me! I do not blame Lord Ormsby for misjudging me—much less can I blame you for yielding to his representations, And Oh! I thank God that my innocence has been cleared up, and that my poor Agnes”-—here his voice quivered, but by dint of an almost preterhuman effort ho conquered the emotions that were on the very point of bursting forii:>.and he said, “At all eventa my poor Agnes will not have to look upon me as one who was faithless, depraved, and un- worthy of her!” “No, Charles—no!” murmured Mra. De Vere, the tears raining down her cheeks, and her bosom comiclboao CO