purest years. I shrouded myself in one corner of the room, and counted
the dull minutes till the daylight dawned. I pass over the detail of my
recital--the experiment partially succeeded--would to God that it had
not! would that she had gone down to her grave with her dreadful secret
unrevealed! would--but--"

Here Glanville's voice failed him, and there was a brief silence before
he recommenced.

"Gertrude now had many lucid intervals; but these my presence were always
sufficient to change into a delirious raving, even more incoherent than
her insanity had ever yet been. She would fly from me with the most
fearful cries, bury her face in her hands, and seem like one oppressed
and haunted by a supernatural visitation, as long as I remained in the
room; the moment I left her, she began, though slowly, to recover.

"This was to me the bitterest affliction of all--to be forbidden to
nurse, to cherish, to tend her, was like taking from me my last hope! But
little can the thoughtless or the worldly dream of the depths of a real
love; I used to wait all day by her door, and it was luxury enough to me
to catch her accents or hear her move, or sigh, or even weep; and all
night, when she could not know of my presence, I used to lie down by her
bedside; and when I sank into a short and convulsed sleep, I saw her once
more, in my brief and fleeting dreams, in all the devoted love, and
glowing beauty, which had once constituted the whole of my happiness, and
my world.

"One day I had been called from my post by her door. They came to me
hastily--she was in strong convulsions. I flew up stairs, and supported
her in my arms till the fits had ceased: we then placed her in bed; she