He implores it, sir, with the utmost earnestness, and says he has some
important secret to reveal before his death.'

"'The old story--anything for five minutes more of life and sun-shine.'
said an officer beside me.

"'I must refuse.' said I, 'and desire that these requests may not be
brought before me.'

"'It is the only way, Colonel.' said another; 'and indeed such intervals
have little mercy in them; both parties suffer the more from them.'

"This speech seemed to warrant my selfish determination, and I seized
the pen, and wrote my name to the order; and then handing it to the
officer, covered my face with my hands, and sat with my head leaning on
the table.

"A bustle in front, and a wild cry of agony, told me that the
preparations were begun, and quick as lightning, the roar of a platoon
fire followed. A shriek, shrill and piercing, mingled with the crash,
and then came a cry from the soldiers, 'It is a woman!'

"'With madness in my brain, and a vague dread--I know not of what--I
dashed forward through the crowd, and there, on the pavement, weltering
in her blood, lay the body of Lydchen: she was stone dead, her bosom
shattered by a dozen bullets.

"I fell upon the corpse, the blood poured from my mouth in torrents; and
when I arose, it was with a broken heart, whose sufferings are bringing
me to the grave."

This sad story I have related without any endeavour to convey to my
reader, either the tone of him who told it, or the dreadful conflict
of feeling, which at many times prevented his continuing. In some few
places the very words he made use of were those I have employed, since
they have remained fast rooted in my memory, and were associated with
the facts themselves. Except in these slight particulars, I have told
the tale as it lives in my recollection, coupled with one of the saddest
nights I ever remember.

It was near morning when he concluded, tired and exhausted, yet to all
appearance calmer and more tranquil from the free current of that sorrow
he could not longer control.

"Leave me now," said he, "for a few hours; my servant shall call you
before I go."

It was to no purpose that I offered to accompany him, alleging--as with
an easy conscience I could do--that no one was less bound by any ties
of place or time. He refused my offer of companionship, by saying, that
strict solitude alone restored him after one of his attacks, and that
the least excitement invariably brought on a relapse.