"What do you wish me to say?" asked he, smiling.
"Oh, now that's like yourself," cried the poor doctor, bursting into tears, and throwing his arms round Edric's neck, whilst he sobbed upon his shoulder like a child. "Now I shall die happy! I don't care what they do to me; I am quite ready for any thing that may happen."
Edric was affected by the doctor's manner, and returning his embrace warmly, he could not restrain his own tears.
"Oh! my dear, dear Edric!" cried the doctor; "how I love you! would to Heaven I could save you! I would not care for myself."
"And I would not accept of liberty without you, my dear tutor, I assure you!" returned Edric. "No, no! the perils we have undergone together have added new force to the ties that formerly united us; and our fate now, be it good or ill, shall be the same. It is possible, however, that there may be some means of escape."
"Alas! no!" said the doctor mournfully; seeing Edric look round at the walls and windows: "this is the same dungeon I have been so long confined in, and not even a mouse could get out of it without the keeper's permission."
"What is to be done, then?" cried Edric.
"Ay," returned the doctor; "what, indeed! However, it is certainly a great comfort to have a companion in one's misery; and though my prospects are certainly not much improved since you joined me, my cares are lessened at least one-half."
"Oh! my poor father!" exclaimed Edric. "The hardest part of my fate seems to die without obtaining his forgiveness! Alas! if he could see me now, he would surely repent his ill-timed severity. Fain would I also know what has passed in England since we left it: if Edmund be married, and if Claudia still reigns. It was spring when we left England, it is now winter: alas! alas! how many changes this brief space of time may have produced. If, however, my father's life has been spared, I care not for the rest."
"How little did we anticipate," said the doctor, "when we first proposed to travel, the misfortunes that were to attend us! Alas! they seem a just punishment for our crime, in presuming to wish to pry into secrets never intended to be revealed to man."