92 



THE MONK. 



nature of the case, all combined to procure a commutation of the 

 sentence of death into a decree of perpetual banishment. 



" His father and Colonel Hamilton saw him depart from the town 



of an outcast and wanderer, whilst they returned to their once 



peaceful homes miserable and heart-broken. One more painful task 

 was still to be performed — it was to tell Mary of her lover's fate. 

 Her father broke the fatal intelligence in the gentlest manner pos- 

 sible. She heard him patiently and in silence. Her mind had 

 foreboded evil, and it now came before her in fearful reality. When 

 he had concluded she shed no tears, nor exhibited any violent emo- 

 tion ; but her eyes were fixed on vacancy with a wild, agonized 

 intensity. The spring of her life-blood seemed in an instant frozen 

 at her heart, as her fond father pressed her to his aching breast. 

 She was helpless ; almost lifeless. The blow had crushed her to 

 the earth. The iron had entered into her soul. All her dearest 

 and most cherished anticipations were blasted. The bud of promis- 

 ing happiness was blighted and withered, at the moment it seemed 

 ready to burst into full blossom. She would have shared her lover's 

 exile, and braved hardship and deprivation with him. She would 

 have borne shame and infamy. She would have endured the scorn 

 and pity of the world. She would have sacrificed home, and every 

 domestic peace, to have lightened his load of sorrow, and soothed his 

 ill-starred lot ; for she never doubted his innocence for an instant. 

 But her father ! she could not forsake him ; she could not leave 

 him in his old age to mourn alone, to die unwept. She loved her 

 parent with a genuine enthusiasm, and resolved to make filial duty 

 the strongest motive to action. Hers was not a spirit to be alto- 

 gether subdued by adversity. It was crushed and bruised, but still 

 it rose from its first state of overwhelmed wretchedness. She felt 

 that life could have in it nothing bright for her ; yet she did not 

 yield to despair, but endeavoured to beguile her own griefs by the 

 most watchful affection to her father. He, like Mary, felt perfectly 

 assured that his young friend was not guilty. But Arthur was un- 

 der the ban of the law — a convicted felon — a branded assassin : to 

 unite his child's fate with such an outcast was impossible. He 

 could, therefore, only trust that time might dispel some of the clouds 

 that rested so heavily on the prospects of the future. He could 

 only hope that Heaven would, in its good time, clear away the 

 darkness that now oppressed his house. 



** It was soon manifest that the conflict was too severe for Mary's 

 physical powers. The secret melancholy that preyed upon her heart 

 opened a sure way for the approach of insidious disease. The warm 



