The lightest feather I blow into the air, against the gay chain that ornaments my body! 'In one thing I was deceived with all my cunning.

If I had not been mad--for though we madmen are sharp-witted enough, we get bewildered sometimes--I should have known that the girl would rather have been placed, stiff and cold in a dull leaden coffin, than borne an envied bride to my rich, glittering house.

I should have known that her heart was with the dark-eyed boy whose name I once heard her breathe in her troubled sleep; and that she had been sacrificed to me, to relieve the poverty of the old, white-headed man and the haughty brothers.
'I don't remember forms or faces now, but I know the girl was beautiful.
I know she was; for in the bright moonlight nights, when I start up from my sleep, and all is quiet about me, I see, standing still and motionless in one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure with long black hair, which, streaming down her back, stirs with no earthly wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on me, and never wink or close.

Hush! the blood chills at my heart as I write it down--that form is HERS; the face is very pale, and the eyes are glassy bright; but I know them well.
That figure never moves; it never frowns and mouths as others do, that fill this place sometimes; but it is much more dreadful to me, even than the spirits that tempted me many years ago--it comes fresh from the grave; and is so very death-like.
'For nearly a year I saw that face grow paler; for nearly a year I saw the tears steal down the mournful cheeks, and never knew the cause.

I found it out at last though.