this distant time I cannot record her terms of
soft silver tenderness; to me they were spoken, but they were replied to
by him.

"I will not go," he cried: "here where you have been, where your memory
glides like some heaven-visiting ghost, I will pass the long hours till
we meet, never, my Juliet, again, day or night, to part. But do thou, my
love, retire; the cold morn and fitful breeze will make thy cheek pale,
and fill with languor thy love-lighted eyes. Ah, sweetest! could I press
one kiss upon them, I could, methinks, repose."

And then he approached still nearer, and methought he was about to
clamber into her chamber. I had hesitated, not to terrify her; now I was
no longer master of myself. I rushed forward--I threw myself on him--I
tore him away--I cried, "O loathsome and foul-shaped wretch!"

I need not repeat epithets, all tending, as it appeared, to rail at a
person I at present feel some partiality for. A shriek rose from
Juliet's lips. I neither heard nor saw--I _felt_ only mine enemy, whose
throat I grasped, and my dagger's hilt; he struggled, but could not
escape; at length hoarsely he breathed these words: "Do!--strike home!
destroy this body--you will still live; may your life be long and
merry!"

The descending dagger was arrested at the word, and he, feeling my hold
relax, extricated himself and drew his sword, while the uproar in the
house, and flying of torches from one room to the other, showed that
soon we should be separated--and I--oh! far better die; so that he did
not survive, I cared not. In the midst of my frenzy there was much
calculation:--fall I might, and so that he did not survive, I cared not
for the death-blow I might deal against myself. While still, therefore,
he thought I paused, and while I saw the villanous resolve to take
advantage of my hesitation, in the sudden thrust he made at me, I threw
myself on his sword, and at the same moment plunged my dagger, with a
true desperate aim, in his side. We fell together, rolling over each
other, and the tide of blood that flowed from the gaping wound of each
mingled on the grass. More I know not--I fainted.

Again I returned to life: weak almost to death, I found myself stretched
upon a bed--Juliet was kneeling beside it. Strange! my first broken
request was for a mirror. I was so wan and ghastly, that my poor girl
hesitated, as she told me afterwards; but, by the mass! I thought myself
a right proper youth when I saw the dear refle