A shape stood by her like a thing of air—
She started—Waldron’s haggard face was there.
. . . . . . . . .
He laid her gently down, of sense bereft,
And sunk his picture on her bosom’s snow,
And close beside these lines in blood he left:
“Farewell forever, Geraldine, I go
Another woman’s victim—dare I tell?
’Tis Alice!—curse us, Geraldine!—farewell!”
There is no possibility of denying the fact: this is a droll piece of business. The lover brings forth a miniature, (Mr. Dawes has a passion for miniatures,) sinks it in the bosom of the lady, cuts his finger, and writes with the blood an epistle, (where is not specified, but we presume he indites it upon the bosom as it is “close beside” the picture,) in which epistle he announces that he is “another woman’s victim,” giving us to understand that he himself is a woman after all, and concluding with the delicious bit of Billingsgate