The six sisters of the valleys : an historical romance - University Library

356 THE SIX SISTERS OE THE VALLEYS.
the Marquis's name, to pursue after the
wretch that has committed the outrage.
It's a good thing that I don't appear in the
matter, though I may yet gain my point.
Oh madness !
if at the eleventh hour I have
been disappointed. I thought there were
too many links in the plot. But who could
have guessed that it should have gone on
so well, and then just fail out here at the
very point of success. Oh may the fiends of
purgatory lunch off the carcase of the cursed
Dominican, who reviles the blessed Mary
born without original sin. The accursed
black friar ! How
he triumphs over me !
Ardoine, have I lost you at last ; and not
only so, but given you your own lover, and
enabled you both to escape out of the very
jaws of death. Better to have left you alone,
or never to have troubled my head about the
Babylonish girl, and yet it was something to
look at her and touch her. Ah ! if I had
met such a one in early life, I might have
been a virtuous man. Perdition take St.