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The Purcell Papers — Volume 2 by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
page 173 of 199 (86%)
ground. It was much deranged and
travel-soiled. The poor creature had
hardly entered the chamber when she fell
senseless on the floor. With some difficulty
they succeeded in reviving her, and
on recovering her senses she instantly ex-
claimed, in a tone of eager, terrified impatience:

'Wine, wine, quickly, or I'm lost!'

Much alarmed at the strange agitation
in which the call was made, they at once
administered to her wishes, and she drank
some wine with a haste and eagerness which
surprised them. She had hardly swallowed
it, when she exclaimed, with the same
urgency:

'Food, food, at once, or I perish!'

A considerable fragment of a roast joint
was upon the table, and Schalken immediately
proceeded to cut some, but he was
anticipated; for no sooner had she become
aware of its presence than she darted at it
with the rapacity of a vulture, and, seizing
it in her hands she tore off the flesh with
her teeth and swallowed it.

When the paroxysm of hunger had been
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