again to pursue her; and thus he
wandered over the Apennines and the vast plain beyond them, days,
weeks, months long, till in a wild conflict of his baffled vengeance and
insanity he died! She was never heard of more!

Such is the horrid story of the chamber in which I sit; her bust, that
of a lovely and gentle girl, fast entering into womanhood, is now before
me; the forehead and the brows are singularly fine; the mouth alone
reveals any thing of the terrible nature within; the lips are firm and
compressed--the under one drawn slightly--very slightly--backward.
The head itself is low, and, for the comfort of phrenologists, sadly
deficient in "veneration." The whole character of the face is, however,
beautiful, and of a classic order. It is horrible to connect the
identity with a tale of blood.

With this terrible tragedy still dwelling on my mind, and the features
of her who enacted it, I fell asleep. The room in which I lay had
witnessed the deed. The low portal in the corner, concealed behind the
arras, led to the stairs of the tower; the deep window in the massive
wall looked out upon the swelling landscape over which she fled, and he,
in mad fury, pursued her: these, were enough to seize and hold the mind,
and, blending the actual with the past, to make up a vision of palpable
reality. Oftentimes did I start from sleep. Now, it was the fancy of a
foot upon the tower stair; now, a child's fairy step upon the terrace
overhead; now, I heard, in imagination, the one, wild, fearful cry,
uttered as if the reeling senses could endure no more! At last I found
it better to rise and sit by the window, so overwrought and excited had
my brain become. Day was breaking, not in the cold grey of a northern
dawn, but in a rich glow of violet-coloured light, which, warmer on the
mountain-tops, gradually merged into a faint pinkish hue upon the lesser
hills, and became still fainter in the valleys and over the city itself.
A light, gauzy mist, tracked out in the air the course of the Arno; but
so frail was this curtain, that the sun's rays were already rending and
scattering its fragments, giving through the breaches bright peeps of
villas, churches, and villages on the mountain sides: the great dome,
too, rose up in solemn grandeur; and the tall tower of Santa Croce
stood, sentinel like, over the sleeping city. Already the low sounds of
labour, awakening to its daily call, were heard; the distant rumbling
of the heavy waggon, the