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Rh horror of that fixed and motionless gaze! It was Beatrice's countenance; but I felt it was a fiend, to whom power was given over my soul!

"At length bodily sickness mastered that of the mind. I awoke from a severe attack of fever, weak as a child, but conscious—conscious of the terrible past! An old monk watched beside me; his own sin, and his own sorrow, taught him sympathy. He prayed by me; I could not pray myself,—I never have, since that fair corpse was carried along the streets of Padua. In that convent I remained for some months; the energy of my mind was gone. I desired no employment; I entertained no wishes; my existence was purely mechanical—dragged on, like a weary chain, from which I lacked resolution to free myself. Yet my health amended; and no longer an object for charity to the convent, it behoved me to choose some future path. The monk I have named easily induced me to follow in his steps; and he, as a last offering to offended Heaven, was about to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I accompanied him: even to me might come the healing influence of that sacred soil where a Saviour's tears had fallen: there might I weep, too; and, humbled on the earth which he had trod, wash out mine offence with his blood!