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284 how many such vigils have been kept, and are keeping!—it is a common scene:—the still and darkened room—darkened, for the eyes are too weak to bear that light which is departing from them for ever; where, if a sunbeam enters, it is like an unwelcome visitor; where one sweet and watchful nurse glides like a shadow;—so subdued is every movement, the loudest noise in that still chamber is the beating of the sufferer's heart, or the low music of a whispered question, fainter than even the failing voice which answers.

How many dreary nights are passed in feverish wakefulness on one side, and dreadful solicitude on the other! It seems worst to die at night; the blackness throws its own gloom, and the damp on the ever cold midnight hour is as if disembodied spirits brought with them the chill of the grave, which only then they are permitted to quit. How long the minutes seem when sleep is banished by pain and anxiety! The single pale and shaded light, flinging round its fantastic shapes—that "visible darkness," enough to try the strongest nerves; and how much more so, when the bodily strength is worn down, and the imagination, excited by one ever-present dread, is wound up to admit all forms of fearful fantasy!

Francesca would start from a moment's