I strained her fragile form to my breast. I kissed her pale cheeks—her brow—her lips. She moved not. I found she had fainted. I thought she was dead, and my brain reeled.
I raised her beautiful form in my arms, and laid her gently on a couch.
She was like marble—so cold, and pale, and breathless. I called no one to my assistance—I was the madman—the desperate, heart-broken madman—and I saw before me the ruin I had wrought.
How long this lasted I cannot tell; I only know my feelings were worked to frenzy. I called upon her by name; I conjured her to look at me, to speak to me once—but once more.
I longed for tears to cool the burning heat of my brain. In my agony, I laughed and shrieked aloud; I could not control myself.
She opened her eyes, those large, bright, lustrous eyes, and looked, I thought, kindly on me. How those glances entered my soul!
“Speak to me, Julia, forgive me,” I said. She smiled, and extended her hand. Her eyes were in a moment fixed and glassy. She tried to speak, when, O God! as her lips separated, the life-blood gushed from her heart, and the purple stream flowed over her neck and bosom.
I was paralyzed—I moved not—I looked on horror-stricken.
She made one movement with her hand, and then it fell lifeless by her side. She gave one deep sigh, and all was over. I saw that she was dead, but I wept not. I stood by, a miserable madman, my heart heaving with agony, but my eyes refusing to weep, and laughing that violent, horrible laugh, that mockery of mirth which belongs only to the maniac’s ravings.
I stood by the couch—I bathed my burning forehead with her blood—I saw that beautiful being cold and motionless, her eyes closed, and the lofty brow damp with the dews of death. I saw this and yet lived on.