She never once turned her eyes upon her mother, nor raised them for a
moment from her father's face. In fact, she did not seem to have heard
a single syllable she said, and this was evident from the wild but
affecting abstractedness of her manner.

"Mother!" she exclaimed, "that man they say is a murderer, and yet I am
not worthy to touch him. Ah! I'm alone now--altogether alone, and he--he
that loved me, too, was taken away from me by a cruel death--ay, a cruel
death; for it was barbarous to kill him as if he was a wild beast--ay,
and without one moment's notice, with all his sins upon his head. He
is gone--he is gone; and there lies the man that murdered him--there
he lies, the sinner; curse upon his hand of blood that took him I loved
from me! O, my heart's breakin' and my brain is boilin'! What will I do?
Where will I go? Am I mad? Father, my curse upon you for your deed of
blood! I never thought I'd live to curse you; but you don't hear me,
nor know what I suffer. Shame! disgrace--ay, and I'd bear it all for his
sake that you plunged, like a murderer, as you were, into eternity. How
does any of you know what it is to love as I did? or what it is to lose
the man you love by a death so cruel? And this hair that he praised so
much, who will praise it or admire it now, when he is gone? Let it go,
too, then. I'll not keep it on me--I'll tear it off--off!"

Her paroxysm had now risen to a degree of fury that fell little, if
anything, short of insanity--temporary insanity it certainly was.
She tore her beautiful hair from her head in handfuls, and would have
proceeded to still greater lengths, when she was seized by some of those
present, in order to restrain her violence. On finding that she was held
fast, she looked at them with blazing eyes, and struggled to set herself
free; but on finding her efforts vain, she panted deeply three or four
times, threw back her head, and fell into a fit that, from its violence,