of Corinne, her disturbed gait, her altered accent, her looks, sometimes
animated and sometimes dejected, painted the cruel conflict of fear and
love, the terrible images which pursued her at the idea of being
transported alive to the tomb of her ancestors, and the enthusiasm of
passion, which enabled a soul, so young, to triumph over so natural a
terror. Oswald felt an almost irresistible impulse to fly to her aid. At
one time she lifted her eyes towards heaven, with an ardour which deeply
expressed that need of divine protection, from which no human being was
ever free. At another time, Lord Nelville thought he saw her stretch her
arms towards him to ask his assistance--he rose up in a transport of
delirium, and then sat down immediately, brought to his senses by the
astonished looks of those about him; but his emotion became so strong
that it could no longer be concealed.

In the fifth act, Romeo, who believes Juliet dead, lifts her from the
tomb before she awakes and presses her to his heart. Corinne was clad in
white, her black hair dishevelled, and her head inclined upon Romeo with
a grace, and nevertheless an appearance of death, so affecting and so
gloomy, that Oswald felt himself shaken with the most opposite
impressions. He could not bear to see Corinne in the arms of another,
and he shuddered at beholding the image of her whom he loved, apparently
deprived of life; so that in fact he felt, like Romeo, that cruel
combination of despair and love, of death and pleasure, which makes this
scene the most agonising that ever was represented on a stage. At
length, when Juliet awakes in this tomb, at the foot of which her lover
has just immolated himself, when her first words in her coffin, beneath
these funeral vaults, are not inspired by the terror which they ought to
cause, when she exclaims:

"Where is my lord? Where is my Romeo?"

Lord Nelville replied by deep groans, and did not return to himself till
Mr Edgermond conducted him out of the theatre.

The piece being finished, Corinne felt indisposed from emotion and
fatigue. Oswald entered first into her apartment, where he saw her alone
with her women, still in the costume of Juliet, and, like Juliet, almost
swooning in their arms. In the excess of his trouble he could not
distinguish whether it was truth or fiction, and throwing himself at
the feet of Corinne, exclaimed, in English:

"Eyes look your last! Arms take your last embrace."

Corinne,