Oh,
how wretched you have made me! How you have shaken all my most rooted
opinions of the residence of virtue among mankind! Am I alone, and
unsupported in her cause? How forlorn and solitary do I seem to myself!
I suffered--once I suffered the thought of Edwin to mix with the love of
rectitude, and the obedience of heaven. They all together confirmed me
in the path I had chalked out for myself. Mistake not these reproaches
for the weakness of returning passion. And yet, Edwin, though I loath, I
pity you! Go, and repent! Go, and blot from the records of your memory
the cold insinuation, the aggravated guilt that you have this day
practised! Go, and let me never, never see you more!"
As she uttered these words, congratulation, reproach, wretchedness,
abhorrence and pity succeeded each other in her countenance. Rut they
were all accompanied with an ineffable dignity, and an angelic purity.
The savage and the satyr might have beheld, and been awed into
reverence. Roderic slunk away, guilty, mortified, and confounded. And
such was the success of this other attempt upon the virtue of Imogen.
[Illustration]
BOOK THE SIXTH
IMOGEN ENDEAVOURS TO SUBDUE THE ATTENDANTS OF RODERIC.--THE SUPPER OF
THE HALL.--JOURNEY AND ARRIVAL OF EDWIN.
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