with great difficulty. Her large black eyes, dimmed by fever, no
doubt, and half-dead already, hardly moved under the bony arch of her
eyebrows.--There,' he added, pointing to his own brow. 'Her forehead
was clammy; her fleshless hands were like bones covered with soft
skin; the veins and muscles were perfectly visible. She must have been
very handsome; but at this moment I was startled into an indescribable
emotion at the sight. Never, said those who wrapped her in her shroud,
had any living creature been so emaciated and lived. In short, it was
awful to behold! Sickness so consumed that woman, that she was no more
than a phantom. Her lips, which were pale violet, seemed to me not to
move when she spoke to me.

"'Though my profession has familiarized me with such spectacles, by
calling me not infrequently to the bedside of the dying to record
their last wishes, I confess that families in tears and the agonies I
have seen were as nothing in comparison with this lonely and silent
woman in her vast chateau. I heard not the least sound, I did not
perceive the movement which the sufferer's breathing ought to have
given to the sheets that covered her, and I stood motionless, absorbed
in looking at her in a sort of stupor. In fancy I am there still. At
last her large eyes moved; she tried to raise her right hand, but it
fell back on the bed, and she uttered these words, which came like a
breath, for her voice was no longer a voice: "I have waited for you
with the greatest impatience." A bright flush rose to her cheeks. It
was a great effort to her to speak.

"'"Madame," I began. She signed to me to be silent. At that moment
the old housekeeper rose and said in my ear, "Do not speak; Madame la
Comtesse is not in a state to bear the slightest noise, and what you
say might agitate her."