Everywhere I turn I see the same figure--her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on its bridal bier.

Could I behold this and live?
Alas! Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.

For a moment only did I lose recollection; I fell senseless on the ground.
When I recovered I found myself surrounded by the people of the inn; their countenances expressed a breathless terror, but the horror of others appeared only as a mockery, a shadow of the feelings that oppressed me.

I escaped from them to the room where lay the body of Elizabeth, my love, my wife, so lately living, so dear, so worthy.

She had been moved from the posture in which I had first beheld her, and now, as she lay, her head upon her arm and a handkerchief thrown across her face and neck, I might have supposed her asleep.