“Thou shalt have thy desire!” the student cried, as he struggled in her frantic clasp.
There was the gleam of steel,——one faint, bubbling sigh,——the arms relaxed their hold, and Basil was alone,——with the dead!
The fire stayed in its dire path, and a wailing sound rose as the spirits fled away. Heaven and earth had alike forsaken the murderer.
He knelt beside his victim; he wept, he laughed, he screamed; for madness was in his brain.
“I may clasp thee now, Isilda,” he shouted, “thou art all my own!” And he strained the cold, still form to his breast, kissing the lips and cheeks with passionate vehemence.
“I will make thee a pyre,——a noble funereal pyre,” he continued; “I will purify this mortal clay, and thou shalt become a spirit, Isilda,——a beautiful, immortal spirit.”
He bore the dead to where the fire raged fiercest; he laid his beloved on a couch; composed the frigid limbs, folded the hands, and, kissing the cold lips once more, retired to a distance, while the flames played round the still beautiful form that was once Isilda. Lovingly they inwreathed and enshrouded it, until at last they concealed it from the student’s gaze. He turned and fled. The fire hid in its mysterious bosom the ashes of that noble and devoted heart. Isilda had found the death she once thought so blest,——death by the hand of the beloved.
VII.
Fearfully did morning dawn on the eyes of the murderer. He had regained his chamber unobserved, and there he crouched in its most gloomy nook. His frenzy had passed away, and left the freezing coldness of despair. The darkness was terrible to him, and yet when the light of morning came, he shrank from it in horror, and buried his face in his garments to shut out the fearful glare. All day he remained motionless. Margareta’s loud weeping came to him from within. From her brother’s bolted door, she thought he had departed on one of his usual rambles, and Basil heard his name repeated often, mingled with Isilda’s,——whom all supposed to have perished in the flames.