“I am no priest,” said Cedric, turning with disgust from this miserable picture of guilt, wretchedness, and despair; “I am no priest, though I wear a priest’s garment.”
“Priest or layman,” answered Ulrica, “thou art the first I have seen for twenty years, by whom God was feared or man regarded; and dost thou bid me despair?”
“I bid thee repent,” said Cedric. “Seek to prayer and penance, and mayest thou find acceptance! But I cannot, I will not, longer abide with thee.”
“Stay yet a moment!” said Ulrica; “leave me not now, son of my father’s friend, lest the demon who has governed my life should tempt me to avenge myself of thy hard-hearted scorn—Thinkest thou, if Front-de-Boeuf found Cedric the Saxon in his castle, in such a disguise, that thy life would be a long one?—Already his eye has been upon thee like a falcon on his prey.”
“And be it so,” said Cedric; “and let him tear me with beak and talons, ere my tongue say one word which my heart doth not warrant. I will die a Saxon—true in word, open in deed—I bid thee avaunt!—touch me not, stay me not!—The sight of Front-de-Boeuf himself is less odious to me than thou, degraded and degenerate as thou art.”
“Be it so,” said Ulrica, no longer interrupting him; “go thy way, and forget, in the insolence of thy superority, that the wretch before thee is the daughter of thy father’s friend.—Go thy way—if I am separated from mankind by my sufferings—separated from those whose aid I might most justly expect—not less will I be separated from them in my revenge!—No man shall aid me, but the ears of all men shall tingle to hear of the deed which I shall dare to do!—Farewell!—thy scorn has burst the last tie which seemed yet to unite me to my kind—a thought that my woes might claim the compassion of my people.”