“This language amazes me,” said Hippolita. “Your feeling, Isabella, is warm: but until this hour I never knew it betray you into intemperance. What deed of Manfred authorizes you to treat him as a murderer, an assassin?”
“Thou virtuous, and too credulous princess!” replied Isabella; “it is not thy life he aims at—it is to separate himself from thee! to divorce thee! to——”
“To divorce me!”—“To divorce my mother!” cried Hippolita and Matilda at once.
“Yes,” said Isabella; “and, to complete his crime, he meditates—I cannot speak it!”
“What can surpass what thou hast already uttered?” said Matilda.
Hippolita was silent. Grief choked her speech; and the recollection of Manfred’s late ambiguous discourses confirmed what she heard.
“Excellent, dear lady!—madam! mother!” cried Isabella, flinging herself at Hippolita’s feet in a transport of passion; “trust me, believe me, I will die a thousand deaths sooner than consent to injure you, than yield to so odious——”
“Oh, this is too much!” cried Hippolita. “What crimes does one crime suggest! Rise, dear Isabella; I do not doubt your virtue. Oh, Matilda, this stroke is too heavy for thee! weep not, my child; and not a murmur, I charge thee. Remember, he is thy father still!”
“But you are my mother, too,” said Matilda, fervently; “and you are virtuous, you are guiltless! Oh, must not I, must not I complain?”
“You must not,” said Hippolita; “come, all will be well. Manfred, in the agony for the loss of thy brother, knew not what he said; perhaps Isabella misunderstood him: his heart is good—and, my child, thou knowest not all. There is a destiny hangs over us: the hand of Providence is stretched out. Oh, could I but save thee from the wreck.—Yes,” continued she, in a firmer tone, “perhaps the sacrifice of myself may atone for all; I will go and offer myself to this divorce—it boots not what becomes of me. I will withdraw into the neighbouring monastery, and waste the remainder of life in prayers and tears for my child and—the prince.”