I flew, rather than walked, to her residence. I felt startled and alarmed as I trode the streets; for I had not been out for months, and I fancied every one stared at me--that everyone knew _I was mad_; but the one darling hope of seeing _her_ cheered me on. At last I reached the house. I was admitted; and in a moment I was by the side of Julia. She was looking pale and ill, but very lovely. I rushed towards her. I knelt by her side. I took her cold hand in mine, and kissed it ardently. A bright colour suffused her cheek. She endeavoured to withdraw her hand from my grasp; but the demon was within me. I held that pale, small, fragile hand firmly; and pressed it again and again to my lips, and my throbbing, bursting heart. I laughed aloud and wildly, and she looked at me fearfully. She had discovered my secret, and she saw that _I was mad_. "You, too, have been ill?" she said. The honied accents of that beloved voice fell on my ear like dew to the parched flower. I was calmed in a moment, and I endeavoured to look coldly on her who was life--light--all to me in this world. I found she had been dangerously ill, and I felt, as I looked on her imperial loveliness, that she was not destined long for this world. Daily I saw her. I could not see enough of one I loved so desperately; and I feigned calmness while I endured agony--but my madness ruined me at last. One wretched day--I spoke to her of love. I told her of my devotion--my hopeless devotion for so many years. I knelt by her side--I passed my arm round her waist--and for one brief moment I rested my scorching, maddened brow upon her bosom. It was only a moment of reality--but an eternity of bliss in the recollection. I strained her fragile form to my breast. I kissed her pale cheeks--her brow--her lips. She moved not. I found she had fainted. I thought she was dead, and my brain reeled. I raised her beautiful form in my arms, and laid her gently on a couch. She was like marble--so cold, and pale, and breathless. I called no one to my assistance--I was the madman--the desperate, heart-broken madman--and I saw before me the ruin I had wrought. How long this lasted I cannot tell; I only know my feelings were worked to frenzy. I called upon her by name; I conjured her to look at me, to speak to me once--but once more. I longed for tears to cool the burning heat of my brain. In my agony, I laughed and shrieked aloud; I could not control myself. She opened her eyes, those large, bright, lustrous eyes, and looked, I thought, kindly on me. How those glances entered my soul! "Speak to me, Julia, forgive me," I said. She smiled, and extended her hand. Her eyes were in a moment fixed and glassy. She tried to speak, when, O God! as her lips separated, the life-blood gushed from her heart, and the purple stream flowed over her neck and bosom. I was paralyzed--I moved not--I looked on horror-stricken.