She saw Adrian stretched bleeding and dead upon the wheel—his limbs severed and torn, and his brow scarred by the instruments of torture, while the doomsman’s laugh rang in her ears. As the picture grew upon her mind in all its horrible details:—the glazed eye and the writhen lip, the chest heaving with the convulsive sobs of death, and the throat straining with the death rattle,—the maiden covered her face with her hands, and shrieked:
“Save me, holy Mary, save me from these fearful fancies!”
And as she spoke, the maiden burst into a flood of tears.
“Annabel!” whispered a voice at once deep-toned and full of affection.
She looked up, and her father, the Count Aldarin, stood before her.
“My daughter,” he continued, drawing a seat beside her, “how dost thou like these?”
He opened a casket which he held in his hand, and the light of the alabaster lamp flashed upon ornaments of gold and silver, such as might not shame a queen to wear.
There were bracelets for the wrists, there were chains for the arching neck, gems for the brow, pearls to be woven in the flowing hair; and as their bright and star-like blaze met the eye of the Ladye Annabel, she gave utterance to a cry of delight.
“I thank thee, father, I thank thee!” she exclaimed, as, clasping a bracelet of gold, bordered by pearls, around her fair and well-rounded wrist, she received it with a glance of admiration. “See, father, see! How beauteous are those pearls, how bright that gold, and the shape—how exquisite! O! father, this is kind of thee! ’Tis indeed a rich gift!”
“It is a bridal gift!” exclaimed the Count, in a low and quiet tone, and with his eyes fixed upon his daughter’s countenance, as if to note each varying expression of the fair and lovely features.