Matilda gazed upon it, and waited with the most eager, yet subdued impatience, for the expiration of the few minutes which yet remained—she still gazed.
The features of Verezzi’s countenance were slightly convulsed.
The clock struck eleven.
His lips unclosed—Matilda turned pale with terror; yet mute, and absorbed by expectation, remained rooted to her seat.
She raised her eyes, and hope again returned, as she beheld the countenance of the humane physician lighted up with a beam of pleasure.
She could no longer contain herself, but, in an ecstasy of pleasure, as excessive as her grief and horror before had been violent, in rapid and hurried accents questioned the physician. The physician, with an expressive smile, pressed his finger on his lip. She understood the movement, and though her heart was dilated with sudden and excessive delight, she smothered her joy, as she had before her grief, and gazed with rapturous emotion on the countenance of Verezzi, as, to her expectant eyes, a blush of animation tinged his before pallid countenance.
Matilda took his hand—the pulses yet beat with feverish violence. She gazed upon his countenance—the film, which before had overspread his eye, disappeared; returning expression pervaded its orbit, but it was the expression of deep, of rooted grief.
The physician made a sign to Matilda to withdraw.
She drew the curtain before her, and in anxious expectation awaited the event.
A deep, a long-drawn sigh, at last burst from Verezzi’s bosom. He raised himself, his eyes seemed to follow some form which imagination had portrayed in the remote obscurity of the apartment, for the shades of night were but partially dissipated by a lamp which burnt on a table behind. He raised his almost nerveless arm, and passed it across his eyes, as if to convince himself that what he saw was not an illusion of the imagination.