hed the house. I was admitted; and in a moment I was by
the side of Julia. She was looking pale and ill, but very lovely.

I rushed towards her. I knelt by her side. I took her cold hand in mine,
and kissed it ardently. A bright colour suffused her cheek. She
endeavoured to withdraw her hand from my grasp; but the demon was within
me. I held that pale, small, fragile hand firmly; and pressed it again
and again to my lips, and my throbbing, bursting heart. I laughed aloud
and wildly, and she looked at me fearfully. She had discovered my
secret, and she saw that _I was mad_.

"You, too, have been ill?" she said.

The honied accents of that beloved voice fell on my ear like dew to the
parched flower. I was calmed in a moment, and I endeavoured to look
coldly on her who was life--light--all to me in this world.

I found she had been dangerously ill, and I felt, as I looked on her
imperial loveliness, that she was not destined long for this world.

Daily I saw her. I could not see enough of one I loved so desperately;
and I feigned calmness while I endured agony--but my madness ruined me
at last.

One wretched day--I spoke to her of love. I told her of my devotion--my
hopeless devotion for so many years. I knelt by her side--I passed my
arm round her waist--and for one brief moment I rested my scorching,
maddened brow upon her bosom. It was only a moment of reality--but an
eternity of bliss in the recollection.

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