out upon a long ramble; to wait for your return was therefore, in his situation, impossible.
'He was conducted to the chamber of his Elenora; the agonies of death had already seized her; and he arrived but in time to receive the last sigh of her fleeting spirit. She has been dead some hours, but it is only a few minutes ago since he could be torn from her remains; nor could he have then been forced from them, but by the mention of his child; he is gone to weep over the poor babe, and I am now about following him.'
"You will wonder, no doubt, my dearest Madeline, how I could listen with calmness to this recital; you will wonder that I did not start into instant madness, and with a desperate hand, terminate my wretched existence; but horror had frozen up my blood, and suspended every faculty; my silence astonished the monk, and he looked steadily at me. At length I spoke—'Father (said I, in a hollow voice), do you not believe that
