d as it was expected he shortly would be,
before the assembled garrison, he would be made to expiate the atrocity
with his blood.

While the men thus gave indulgence to their indignation and their
grief, their officers were even mere painfully affected. The body of
the ill-fated Charles had been borne to his apartment, where, divested
of its disguise, it had again been inducted in such apparel as was
deemed suited to the purpose. Extended on the very bed on which he lay
at the moment when she, whose maniac raving, and forcible detention,
had been the immediate cause of his destruction, had preferred her wild
but fruitless supplication for mercy, he exhibited, even in death, the
same delicate beauty that had characterised him on that occasion; yet,
with a mildness and serenity of expression on his still, pale features,
strongly in contrast with the agitation and glow of excitement that
then distinguished him. Never was human loveliness in death so marked
as in Charles de Haldimar; and but for the deep wound that, dividing
his clustering locks, had entered from the very crown of the head to
the opening of his marble brow, one ignorant of his fate might have
believed he but profoundly slept. Several women of the regiment were
occupied in those offices about the corpse, which women alone are
capable of performing at such moments, and as they did so, suffered
their tears to flow silently yet abundantly over him, who was no longer
sensible either of human grief or of human joy. Close at the head of
the bed stood an old man, with his face buried in his hands; the latter
reposing against the wainscoting of the room. He, too, wept, but his
weeping was more audible, more painful, and accompanied by suffocating
sobs. It was the humble, yet almost paternally attached servant of the
defunct--the veteran Morrison.

Around the bed were grouped nearly all the officers, standing in
attitudes indicative of anxiety and interest, and gazing mournfully on
the placid features of their ill-fated friend. All, on entering, moved
noiselessly over the rude floor, as though fearful of disturbing the
repose of one who merely slumbered; and the same precaution was
extended to the brief but heartfelt expressions of sorrow that passed,
from one to the other, as they gazed on all that remained of the gentle
De Haldimar. At length the preparations of the women having been
completed, they retired from the room, leaving one of their number
only, rather