defrauded
me of my last and miserable consolation. I sought not in her visage, for
the tinge of the morning, and the lustre of heaven. These had vanished
with life; but I hoped for liberty to print a last kiss upon her lips.
This was denied me; for such had been the merciless blow that destroyed
her, that not a LINEAMENT REMAINED!

I was carried hence to the city. Mrs. Hallet was my companion and my
nurse. Why should I dwell upon the rage of fever, and the effusions
of delirium? Carwin was the phantom that pursued my dreams, the giant
oppressor under whose arm I was for ever on the point of being crushed.
Strenuous muscles were required to hinder my flight, and hearts of steel
to withstand the eloquence of my fears. In vain I called upon them to
look upward, to mark his sparkling rage and scowling contempt. All I
sought was to fly from the stroke that was lifted. Then I heaped upon my
guards the most vehement reproaches, or betook myself to wailings on the
haplessness of my condition.

This malady, at length, declined, and my weeping friends began to look
for my restoration. Slowly, and with intermitted beams, memory revisited
me. The scenes that I had witnessed were revived, became the theme
of deliberation and deduction, and called forth the effusions of more
rational sorrow.

Chapter XVIII

I had imperfectly recovered my strength, when I was informed of the
arrival of my mother's brother, Thomas Cambridge. Ten years since, he
went to Europe, and was a surgeon in the British forces in Germany,
during the whole of the late war. After its conclusion, some connection
that he had formed with an Irish officer, made him retire into Ireland.
Intercourse had been punctually maintained by letters with his sister's
children, and hopes were given that he would shortly return to his
native country, and pass his old age in our society. He was now in an
evil hour arrived.

I desired an interview with him for numerous and urgent reasons. With
the first returns of my understanding I had anxiously sought information
of the fate of my brother. During the course of my disease I had never
seen him; and vague and unsatisfactory answers were returned to all my
inquires. I had vehemently interrogated Mrs. Hallet and her husband, and
solicited an interview with this unfortunate man; but they mysteriously
insinuated that his reason was still unsettled, and that his
circumstances rendered an interview impossible. Their reserve on