revelry and wilder passion have made me laugh over the sepulchre of my
soul. But I am a poor creature; pour, poor--mad, Percy--mad--they tell me
so!" Then, in the sudden changes incident to her disease, Lucilla
continued--"I saw your bride, Percy, when your bore her from Rome, and the
wheels of your bridal carriage swept over me, for I flung myself in their
way; but they scratched me not; the bright demons above ordained
otherwise, and I wandered over the world; but you shall know not," added
Lucilla, with a laugh of dreadful levity, "whither or with whom, for we
must have concealments, my love, as you will confess; and I strove to
forget you, and my brain sank in the effort. I felt my frame withering,
and they told me my doom was fixed, and I resolved to come to England, and
look on my first love once more; so I came, and I saw you, Godolphin; and
I knew, by the wrinkles in your brow, and the musing thought in your eye,
that your proud lot had not brought you content. And then there came to
me a stately shape, and I knew it for her for whom you had deserted me:
she told me, as you tell me, to live, to forget the past. Mockery,
mockery! But my heart is proud as hers, Percy, and I would not stoop to
the kindness of a triumphant rival; and I fled, what matters it whither?
But listen, Percy, listen; my woes have made me wise in that science which
is not of heart, and I knew that you and I must meet once more, and that
that meeting would be in this hour; and I counted, minute by minute, with
a savage gladness, the days that were to bring on this interview and my
death!" Then raising her voice into a wild shriek--"Beware, beware,
Percy!-the rush of waters is on my ear-the splash, the gurgle!--Beware!--
your last hour, also; is at hand!"

From the moment in which she uttered these words, Lucilla relapsed into
her former frantic paroxysms. Shriek followed shriek; she appeared to
know none around her, not even Godolphin. With throes and agony the soul
seemed to wrench itself from the frame. The hours swept on--midnight