Think
whether you can stand to-morrow's horrors without shrinking! Think
whether you can endure the after-reflection, that you were the cause
of his death, and that merely through a perversity in refusing
proffered happiness."
What a night was it to Inez!--her heart already harassed and almost
broken, by repeated and protracted anxieties; her strength wasted and
enfeebled. On every side, horrors awaited her; her father's death, her
own dishonour--there seemed no escape from misery or perdition. "Is
there no relief from man--no pity in heaven?" exclaimed she. "What
--what have we done, that we should be thus wretched?"
As the dawn approached, the fever of her mind arose to agony; a
thousand times did she try the doors and windows of her apartment, in
the desperate hope of escaping. Alas! with all the splendour of her
prison, it was too faithfully secured for her weak hands to work
deliverance. Like a poor bird, that beats its wings against its gilded
cage, until it sinks panting in despair, so she threw herself on the
floor in hopeless anguish. Her blood grew hot in her veins, her tongue
was parched, her temples throbbed with violence, she gasped rather
than breathed; it seemed as if her brain was on fire.
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