The sight of the unfortunate young man wakened
the General's stormy passions to frenzy. He seemed
to recognise his son only as the cause of his wife's
death. He seized him by the collar, and shook him
violently as he dragged him into the chamber of
mortality.
``Come hither,'' he said, ``thou for whom a life
of lowest obscurity was too mean a fate---come
hither, and look on the parents whom thou hast so
much envied---whom thou hast so often cursed.
Look at that pale emaciated form, a figure of wax,
rather than flesh and blood---that is thy mother---
that is the unhappy Zilia Mon
ada, to whom thy
birth was the source of shame and misery, and to
whom thy ill-omened presence has now brought
death itself. And behold me''---he pushed the lad
from him, and stood up erect, looking wellnigh in
gesture and figure the apostate spirit be described
---``Behold me''---he said; ``see you not my hair
streaming with sulphur, my brow scathed with
lightning?---l am the Arch-Fiend---I am the father
whom you seek---I am the accursed Richard Tresham,
the seducer of Zilia, and the father of her
murderer!''
Hartley entered while this horrid scene was passing.
All attention to the deceased, he instantly
saw, would be thrown away; and understanding,
partly from Winter, partly from the tenor of the
General's frantic discourse, the nature of the disclosure
which had occurred, he hastened to put an
end, if possible, to the frightful and scandalous
scene which had taken place.
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