is important to your
salvation hereafter that you should confess it now.”
I was silent, dumbfoundered
for a moment or two. “Ah! my daughter, conceal nothing. Alas! it is as I feared—conceal nothing from me, or it will be impossible for me to grant you absolution.”
Thus pressed, and feeling but a full confession would avail me with the Confessor, I told him everything, and especially how sorry I felt at having allowed my pique at the Earl’s neglect to have carried me into such a liaison, and that the tender regard he had lately exhibited towards me smote me to the quick for my unfaithfulness, and that that was the reason I had so given way to lasciviousness
with him, in order to compensate, by the perfect abandon of my love, for any suspicions he might entertain.
“My daughter
, I must consult our Superior. [57] ]Yours
is such a serious case, and I beg that you will go into the vestry, by the door behind this box, and wait a few minutes, till I bring you his decision,” said Father Francisco.
I was all of a tremble, my face felt hot with blushes of shame and I longed to hide from observation