At that action, as if endowed with instant
vitality from contact with a living being, the figure suddenly started
up.
Then, the folds of the dark mantle fell back, disclosing a face as pale
in hue as the stone pillars around it; and the voice of the solitary
being became audible, uttering in faint, monotonous accents, these
words:--
'He has forgotten and abandoned me!--slay me if you will!--I am ready to
die!'
Broken, untuned as it was, there yet lurked in that voice a tone of its
old music, there beamed in that vacant and heavy eye a ray of its native
gentleness. With a sudden exclamation of compassion and surprise, the
Goth stepped forward, raised the trembling outcast in his arms; and, in
the impulse of the moment quitting the solitary house, stood the next
instant on the firm earth, and under the starry sky, once more united to
the charge that he had abandoned--to Antonina whom he had lost.
He spoke to her, caressed her, entreated her pardon, assured her of his
future care; but she neither answered nor recognised him.
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