CHAPTER XI.
Voilà le précipice où l'ont enfin jeté
Les attraits enchanteurs de la prospérité.
La Fontaine.
Oh di destino avverso
Fatal possanza! a mie tante sventure
Ciò sol mancava.
Alfieri.
Forget! forgive!—I must indeed forget
When I forgive.
Southern.
Every hope was now extinct—the fatal morning arrived. Theodora, the hapless Theodora, against whom fate seemed to have exhausted all her malice, after a night of restless grief, had left her couch betimes, and in a gloomy reverie was sitting by the casement, her hands clasped together, and her eyes vacantly fixed on the moving groups below.
The door opened, and her father entered—the wretched man was in a most pitiable state.
"My child," he said, tenderly, "my dear child, you must leave this place."
"Never," cried the melancholy Theodora, "unless it is to be carried to the grave. Oh! my poor, my dear father, you will soon have to fulfil that last mournful duty towards your hapless child."
"Theodora, speak not thus; your words are daggers. We must submit to the will of Providence—raise your streaming eyes to that heaven, my beloved, and cherish the fond hope that this life of sorrow is to purchase an eternity of pure uninterrupted bliss. Throw yourself into the arms of religion, and your evils will appear lighter to bear."
"Yes, my father, now my only friend," replied Theodora, in a tumult of agony, "I will consider my misfortunes as a just atonement to offended heaven, for the ingratitude of which I have been guilty towards the best of parents."