Page:Tales of the Dead.djvu/174

 one thing remained to harass them. The old priest, who was to bestow on them the nuptial benediction, had yielded up his last breath; and the friendship which had so intimately subsisted between him and the parents of Camilla, did not permit them in decency to think of marriage and amusements the week following his death.

“The day this venerable priest was buried, Filippo’s gaiety received a severe shock; for he learned, in a letter from Clara’s mother, the death of that lovely girl. Sinking under the grief occasioned her by the infidelity of the man she had never ceased to love, she died: but to her latest hour she declared she should never rest quietly in her grave, until the perjured man had fulfilled the promise he had made to her.

“This circumstance produced a stronger effect on him than all the imprecations of the unhappy mother; for he recollected that the first shriek (the cause of which they had never been able to ascertain) was heard at the precise moment of Clara’s death; which convinced him that the unknown mask could only have been the spirit of Clara.

“This idea deprived him at intervals of his senses.

“He constantly carried this letter about him; and with an air of wandering would sometimes draw it from his pocket, in order to reconsider it