feelings as she lay stretched upon a couch,
listening to the contents of the manuscript which she had read before?
At first one hope--one idea was dominant in her soul, the hope that
Flora would be crushed even to death by revelations which were indeed
almost sufficient to overwhelm a gentle disposition and freeze the vital
current in the tender and compassionate heart.

But as Francisco read on, and when he came to those passages which
described the sufferings and the cruel fate of her mother, then Nisida
became a prey to the most torturing feelings--dreadful emotions were
expressed by her convulsed countenance and wildly-glaring eyes--and she
muttered deep and bitter anathemas against the memory of her own father.
For well does the reader know that she had loved her mother to
distraction; and thus the horrifying detail of the injuries heaped upon
the head and on the name of that revered parent aroused all her fiercest
passions of rage and hate as completely as if that history had been new
to her, and as if she were now becoming acquainted with it for the first
time. Indeed, so powerful, so terrible, was the effect produced by the
revival of all those dread reminiscences and heart-rending emotions on
the part of Nisida that, forgetting her malignant spite and her infernal
hope with regard to Flora, she threw her whole soul into the subject of
the manuscript: and the torrent of feelings to which she thus gave way
was crushing and overwhelming to a woman of such fierce passions, and
who had received so awful a shock as that which had stretched her on the
couch where she now lay. For the fate of him whom she had loved with
such ardor, and the revulsion that her affection experienced on account
of the ghastly spectacle which Wagner presented to her view in his dying
moments--the disgust and loathing which had been inspired in her mind by
the thought that she had ever fondled that being in her arms and
absolutely doted on the superhuman beauty that had changed to such
revolting ugliness, it was all this that had struck her down--paralyzed
her--inflicted a mortal, though not an instantaneous blow upon that
woman so lately full of energy, so strong in moral courage, and so full
of vigorous health. Thus impressed with the conviction that her end was
approaching, the moment the perusal of the manuscript was concluded the
Lady Nisida said, in a faint and dying tone of voice:

"Francisco, draw near--as near as possible--and liste