the fiend to whom the misery I now suffered was
attributable. Before doing so, however, I must see my Natalie once
more. I stepped up to the coffin. Natalie lay there in her nun's
garments, a crucifix upon her breast, and a veil surrounding her face,
which, to my inexpressible astonishment and horror, I now saw was
covered with a mask.

I was at first unable to explain this singular circumstance, but then
it occurred to me that her lovely features had been said to be much
distorted in death, and doubtless her friends had taken this means of
concealing them from the gaze of vulgar curiosity. I would see her
though, I thought; I would kiss those lips, once so warm and
love-breathing, now so pale and chilled. The better if, in her
death-like embrace, I found an end to my life and suffering. I
stretched out my hand to detach the mask, which was by no means
unpleasing in its appearance. It reminded me of the one spoken of by
my father in one of his letters; and as I stood looking at it, I
little by little persuaded myself it must be the same. The lips curved
into a mournful smile, an attractive expression on the features; only
the sockets for the eyes were empty, and through them shone the glazed
orbs of the departed.

Whilst given up to these reflections, I suddenly heard a slight
rustling noise near me. I looked round, and saw a muffled figure
sitting at a short distance off, in which I thought I recognized some
old nun keeping her drowsy vigil by the dead. I took no heed of her,
but stretched out my hand to tear the mask from Natalie's face, when
suddenly the figure rose, and with three long, noiseless strides,
stood close beside me. The robe in which it was muffled opened, and I
beheld--Manucci! not the Manucci I had seen at the faro-table, nor yet
he who had lived for years near my mother's house, but the grey old
man who had appeared to me on the night of my father's arrival, and
had said, "Do I look like a murderer?"

"Thou here, villain!" I exclaimed, on beholding this unexpected
apparition. "The hand of heaven is in this!"

I stretched forth my arm to seize the murderer, who thus braved me
beside the corpse of his last victim; but as I did so I experienced a
strange stunning sensation, and fell, as though struck by a
thunderbolt, lifeless to the ground. The first persons who entered the
church upon the following morning found me in this state, and carried
me to the nearest house, where I lay for weeks in a rag