"You do—you do. Oh! cast this frenzy from you."
"She is mine—she is mine! I care not though fiends possess me, if it is my wedding-day, and Eleanor is my bride. And you say I look like a Rookwood. Ha, ha!"
"That wild laughter again. Luke, I implore you, hear me one word—my last——"
"I will not bear reproaches."
"I mean not to reproach you. I come to bless you—to forgive you—to bid you farewell. Will you not say farewell?"
"Farewell."
"Not so—not so. Mercy! my God! compassionate him and me! My heart will break with agony. Luke, if you would not kill me, recall that word. Let not the guilt of my death be yours. 'Tis to save you from that remorse that I die!"
"Sybil, you have said rightly, I am not myself. I know not what demons have possession of my soul, that I can behold your agonies without remorse; that your matchless affection should awaken no return. Yet so it is. Since the fatal moment when I beheld yon maid, I have loved her."
"No more. Now I can part with you. Farewell!"
"Stay, stay! wretch that I am. Stay, Sybil! If we must part—and that it must be so I feel—let me receive your pardon, if you can bestow it. Let me clasp you once more within my arms. May you live to happier days—may you——"