And then I bent over her and whispered, 'Awake, fairest, thy lover is near--he who would give his life but to obtain one look of affection from thine eyes; my beloved, awake!' "The sleeper stirred; a thrill of terror ran through me.

Should she indeed awake, and see me, and curse me, and denounce the murderer?
Thus would she assuredly act if her darkened eyes opened and she beheld me.
The thought was madness; it stirred the fiend within me--not I, but she, shall suffer; the murder I have committed because I am forever robbed of all that she could give me, she shall atone.

The crime had its source in her; be hers the punishment! Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work mischief.

I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress.

She moved again, and I fled.
"For some days I haunted the spot where these scenes had taken place, sometimes wishing to see you, sometimes resolved to quit the world and its miseries forever.