all such wear and tear of frame and heart, she seemed
wonderfully supported. And the holy man marvelled, in each visit, to see
the cheek of the nurse still fresh, and her eye still bright. In her
own superstition she thought and felt that Heaven gifted her with a
preternatural power to be true to so sacred a charge; and in this fancy
she did not wholly err:--for Heaven did gift her with that diviner
power, when it planted in so soft a heart the enduring might and energy
of Affection! The friar had visited the sick man late on the third
night, and administered to him a strong sedative. "This night," said he
to Irene, "will be the crisis: should he awaken, as I trust he may, with
a returning consciousness, and a calm pulse, he will live; if not, young
daughter, prepare for the worst. But should you note any turn in the
disease, that may excite alarm, or require my attendance, this scroll
will inform you where I am, if God spare me still, at each hour of the
night and morning."

The monk retired, and Irene resumed her watch.

The sleep of Adrian was at first broken and interrupted--his features,
his exclamations, his gestures, all evinced great agony, whether mental
or bodily: it seemed, as perhaps it was, a fierce and doubtful struggle
between life and death for the conquest of the sleeper. Patient, silent,
breathing but by long-drawn gasps, Irene sate at the bed-head. The lamp
was removed to the further end of the chamber, and its ray, shaded by
the draperies, did not suffice to give to her gaze more than the outline
of the countenance she watched. In that awful suspense, all the thoughts
that hitherto had stirred her mind lay hushed and mute. She was only
sensible to that unutterable fear which few of us have been happy enough
not to know. That crushing weight under which we can scarcely breathe
or move, the avalanche over us, freezing and suspended, which we
cannot escape from, beneath which, every moment, we may be buried and
overwhelmed. The whole destiny of life was in the chances of that single
night! It was just as Adrian at last seemed to glide into a deeper
and serener slumber, that the bells of the death-cart broke with their
boding knell the palpable silence of the streets. Now hushed, now
revived, as the cart stopped for its gloomy passengers, and coming
nearer and nearer after every pause. At length she heard the heavy
wheels stop under the very casement, and a voice deep and muffled
calling aloud, "Bring