Page:Prose works, from the original editions (Volume 1).djvu/58

 feverish violence. She gazed upon his countenance—the film, which before had overspread his eye, disappeared; returning expression pervaded its orbit, but it was the expression of deep, of rooted grief.

The physician made a sign to Matilda to withdraw.

She drew the curtain before her, and in anxious expectation awaited the event.

A deep, a long-drawn sigh, at last burst from Verezzi's bosom. He raised himself, his eyes seemed to follow some form which imagination had portrayed in the remote obscurity of the apartment, for the shades of night were but partially dissipated by a lamp which burnt on a table behind. He raised his almost nerveless arm, and passed it across his eyes, as if to convince himself that what he saw was not an illusion of the imagination.

He looked at the physician, who sat near to, and silent by the bedside, and patiently awaited whatever event might occur.

Verezzi slowly rose, and violently exclaimed, "Julia! Julia! my long-lost Julia, come!" And then, more collected, he added, in a mournful tone, "Ah, no! you are dead; lost, lost for ever!"

He turned round and saw the physician, but Matilda was still concealed.

"Where am I?" inquired Verezzi, addressing the physician.

"Safe, safe," answered he, "compose yourself; all will be well."

"Ah, but Julia?" inquired Verezzi, with a tone so expressive of despair, as threatened returning delirium.

"Oh! compose yourself," said the humane physician; "you have been very ill; this is but an illusion of the imagination; and even now, I fear that you labour under that delirium which attends a brain-fever."

Verezzi's nerveless frame again sunk upon the bed—*