Opening the door, he advanced slowly and deliberately toward her; and as Lucy caught his pale determined figure, she gave a cry of groping misery, which knew not the pang that caused it, and lifted herself trembling in her bed; but without uttering one word.
Pierre sat down on the bedside; and his set eyes met her terrified and virgin aspect.
“Decked in snow-white, and pale of cheek, thou indeed art fitted for the altar; but not that one of which thy fond heart did’st dream:—so fair a victim!”
“Pierre!”
“’Tis the last cruelty of tyrants to make their enemies slay each other.”
“My heart! my heart!”
“Nay;—— Lucy, I am married.”
The girl was no more pale, but white as any leper; the bed-clothes trembled to the concealed shudderings of all her limbs; one moment she sat looking vacantly into the blank eyes of Pierre, and then fell over toward him in a swoon.
Swift madness mounted into the brain of Pierre; all the past seemed as a dream, and all the present an unintelligible horror. He lifted her, and extended her motionless form upon the bed, and stamped for succor. The maid Martha came running into the room, and beholding those two inexplicable figures, shrieked, and turned in terror. But Pierre’s repeated cry rallied Martha from this, and darting out of the chamber, she returned with a sharp restorative, which at length brought Lucy back to life.
“Martha! Martha!” now murmured Lucy, in a scarce audible whispering, and shuddering in the maid’s own shuddering arms, “quick, quick; come to me—drive it away! wake me! wake me!”