"Wretch!" I exclaimed, "do you glory in your guilt?"
"Hold!" said Glanville, rising, with an altered and haughty air; "it is not to your accusations that I am now to listen: if you are yet desirous of weighing their justice before you decide upon them, you will have the opportunity: I shall be at home at ten this night; come to me, and you shall know all. At present, the sight of this picture has unnerved me. Shall I see you?"
I made no other rejoinder than the brief expression of my assent, and
Glanville instantly left the room.
During the whole of that day, my mind was wrought up into a state of feverish and preternatural excitation. I could not remain in the same spot for an instant; my pulse beat with the irregularity of delirium. For the last hour I placed my watch before me, and kept my eyes constantly fixed upon it. Should any one think this exaggerated, let him remember, that it was not only Glanville's confession that I was to hear; my own fate, my future connection with Ellen, rested upon the story of that night. For myself, when I called to mind Glanville's acknowledgment of the picture, and his slow and involuntary remembrance of the spot where it was found, I scarcely allowed my temper, sanguine as it was, to hope.
Some minutes before the hour of ten I repaired to Glanville's house. He was alone—the picture was before him.
I drew my chair towards him in silence, and accidentally lifting up my eyes, encountered the opposite mirror. I started at my own face; the intensity and fearfulness of my interest had rendered it even more hueless than that of my companion.
There was a pause for some moments, at the end of which Glanville thus began.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
I do but hide
Under these words, like embers, every spark
Of that which has consumed me. Quick and dark
The grave is yawning;—as its roof shall cover
My limbs with dust and worms, under and over,
So let oblivion hide this grief.
Julian and Maddalo.
With thee, the very future fled,
I stand amid the past alone;
A tomb which still shall guard the dead
Tho' every earthlier trace be flown,
A tomb o'er which the weeds that love
Decay—their wild luxuriance wreathe!
The cold and callous stone above—
And only thou and death beneath.
From Unpublished Poems by_____.