 to persuade herself, that some intelligence must have been received, equally favourable to her, and confounding to her oppressor. She expected every moment to hear of the vigorous and effectual interposition of some friends to affert the rights, and to redeem her from her present captivity;

yet did she frequently lament to her faithful attendant, that her rescue was so long delayed. Whatever consolation Elinor could give, was now dissembled and constrained; for Oswald had been enabled to convey to his sister an account of the seizing of young William, and his own return and confinement. She was but too well acquainted with the violence of Ela, too much alarmed with the dread of her relapsing into her former malady, to entrust this fatal intelligence to her ear. With a heart oppressed with grief and terror, she assumed the aspect of ease and serenity. When the Countess expressed her fears, a sigh sometimes escaped from the attendant; but it seemed the sigh of friendly sympathy; and in her moments of pleasing thoughts, and expectations, Elinor had ever at command some general expressions of comfort, some effussions of pious confidence in the great protector of innocence, to brighten the dawn of hope which arose within her gentle mistress. But she was soon to be undeceived; too soon was her heart to be pierced with the most dreadful didings.
End of BOOK V.



THE two brothers who had proved such zealous agents in oppression and cruelty, were once again to aggravate the distresses of the Countess. The discontent and envy which Grey had conceived towards Reginhald since his last arrival, which he was not studious to conceal, together with the insolence and presumption of this Monk, founded on the opinion of his great services, produced mutual coldness and contempt in their wicked hearts, and threatened to dissolve their iniquitous union. A new and unexpected incident now served to light up their animosity.
Some enormities of Reginhald had lately been discovered in the monastery, too great to be concealed or palliated. A country maiden had been seduced to a compliance with his sensual desires. He had for some time consorted with her, until by degrees his brutal passion grew sated, and required some new object. He fixed his lascivious eyes upon the concubine of one of his associates in revelling, and made some attempts to possess her; which had provoked her paramour to utter the most violent menaces against the Monk. To appease his resentment, Reginhald basely proposed to give him up the unhappy victim of his own lewdness. The man was not yet so abandoned to all sense of virtue, as not to feel the utmost abhorrence at this instance of transcendent villany
