Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/65

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it, but 'ere her efforts had succeeded her arm was rudely seized; she immediately turned her head and beheld the inflamed countenance of a man glaring upon her; the moment he saw her face he started back with a look which seemed to intimate she was not the person he expected to have seen, but the faint pleasure which this idea gave was quickly destroyed by his drawing a small dagger from his breast with which he again approached Madeline. Her death she now believed inevitable, and staggering back a few paces, "Ah! heaven have mercy upon me!" she said, and dropped lifeless on the floor.


As she recovered her senses she felt some one chafing her hands.


"Ah! (she cried, in a faint voice) do you restore me to life but to have the pleasure of depriving me of it?"

"My Madeline, my love, (exclaimed the soft voice of Madame D'Alembert) what has thus disordered your senses?"