"In a wretched place," replied Cornelia, "but with those who only wait the morning light to bear you to one of comfort."
On the first sounds of her voice, the sufferer appeared to struggle to bear the light with his eyes; but it was beyond their power. He tried to speak:—
"If I live—" said he. But a sudden agony rushing through his frame, arrested the rest; and turning his face again upon the dark pillow, Cornelia thought that moment was his last.
She clasped her hands, in the wordless sympathy of human nature. She was then brought through the horrors of the still raging tempest, at that dismal hour of night, to this lonely hovel, to close the eyes of a forlorn stranger!—To perform the last offices to the beloved son or husband of some tender mother or doating wife, who must "long look for him who never would return!"
"Louis, Louis!" cried she, in the piteous accents of one calling for an assistance they needed, but despaired of its bringing help. Louis heard the cry, and the tone struck him with an alarm that instantly brought him into the hovel. Lorenzo followed his master, and both rushed through the chamber in which she was not to be found, into the one whence the light gleamed. She pointed, without being able to speak, to the heap on the floor. Seeing her so overcome, instead of approaching it, Louis put his arm round her waist to support her. Lorenzo stepped towards the wretched bed, and the rays of the lamp resting upon the marks of blood, he started back, and exclaimed:—
"Santa Maria!—A murdered man!"
Cornelia gasped at this enunciation of his actual death; and Louis, while he held her faster to his heart, instinctively moved towards the terrific object. Her feet readily obeyed the humane impulse of his; and sliding down on her knee by the side of the motionless stranger, she ventured to put her hand on his, expecting to feel the chill of death.
"He is warm!" cried she, looking up in the face of her cousin. He had caught a glimpse of the figure as it lay, and she saw him pale and trembling, while putting away Lorenzo, who leaned over to assist in raising the dying man, he approached close to the bed. He bent to the head that was smothered up in the wool, and touching it with an emotion in his soul he had only felt once before, he turned that lifeless face upwards. He did not gaze on it a moment. His nerveless hands let go their hold, and it would have fallen back into its loathsome pillow, had not the watchful care of Cornelia caught it on her arm.
"My God! my God!" exclaimed he, as recoiling from the bed, he hid his face in his hands; "to what am I reserved?"
Cornelia did not move from her position, but her eyes were now fixed on her cousin. The emotions of his mind shook his frame to convulsion, though he gave no second utterance to his thoughts.