To poison,—sad resort! she frantic flies,
And, self-destroy'd, the wretched Countess dies!—E.
MARRIAGE A LA MODE. PLATE VI.
The last sad scene of our unfortunate heroine's life is in the house of her father, to which she had returned after her husband's death. The law could not consider her as the primary cause of his murder; but consciousness of her own guilt was more severe punishment than that could have inflicted. This, added to her father's reproaches, and the taunts of those who were once her friends, renders society hateful, and solitude insupportable. Wounded in every feeling, tortured in every nerve, and seeing no prospect of a period to her misery, she takes the horrid resolution of ending all her calamities by poison.
"Dreadful deed, unbidden thus
To rush into the presence of her Judge,
And challenge vengeance. 'Tis said