Early in the morning the nurse came to call Juliet, and to dress her for her wedding; but she would not wake, and at last the nurse cried out suddenly--
“Alas! alas! help! help! my lady's dead! Oh, well-a-day that ever I was born!”
Lady Capulet came running in, and then Lord Capulet, and Lord Paris, the bridegroom. There lay Juliet cold and white and lifeless, and all their weeping could not wake her. So it was a burying that day instead of a marrying. Meantime Friar Laurence had sent a messenger to Mantua with a letter to Romeo telling him of all these things; and all would have been well, only the messenger was delayed, and could not go.
But ill news travels fast. Romeo's servant who knew the secret of the marriage, but not of Juliet's pretended death, heard of her funeral, and hurried to Mantua to tell Romeo how his young wife was dead and lying in the grave.
“Is it so?” cried Romeo, heart-broken. “Then I will lie by Juliet's side to-night.”
And he bought himself a poison, and went straight back to Verona. He hastened to the tomb where Juliet was lying. It was not a grave, but a vault. He broke open the door, and was just going down the stone steps that led to the vault where all the dead Capulets lay, when he heard a voice behind him calling on him to stop.
It was the Count Paris, who was to have married Juliet that very day.
“How dare you come here and disturb the dead bodies of the Capulets, you vile Montagu?” cried Paris.
Poor Romeo, half mad with sorrow, yet tried to answer gently.