"I procured her a sort of half companion, and half nurse; I provided for her every thing that the most anxious and fearful love could suggest; and with a mind full of forebodings too darkly to be realized hereafter, I hastened to the nearest seaport, and set sail for France. "When I arrived at Toulouse my mother was much better, but still in a very uncertain and dangerous state of health. I stayed with her for more than a month, during which time every post brought me a line from Gertrude, and bore back a message from 'my heart to her's' in return. This was no mean consolation, more especially when each letter spoke of increasing health and strength. At the month's end, I was preparing to return--my mother was slowly recovering, and I no longer had any fears on her account; but, there are links in our destiny fearfully interwoven with each other, and ending only in the anguish of our ultimate doom. The day before that fixed for my departure, I had been into a house where an epidemic disease raged; that night I complained of oppressive and deadly illness--before morning I was in a high fever. "During the time I was sensible of my state, I wrote constantly to Gertrude, and carefully concealed my illness; but for several days I was delirious. When I recovered I called eagerly for my letters--there were none--none! I could not believe I was yet awake; but days still passed on, and not a line from England--from Gertrude. The instant I was able, I insisted upon putting horses to my carriage; I could bear no longer the torture of my suspense. By the most rapid journeys my debility would allow me to bear, I arrived in England. I travelled down to--by the same road that I had gone over with her; the words of her foreboding, at that time, sunk like ice into my heart, 'You will travel this road again before many months are past, and I shall not be with you: perhaps, I shall not be upon the earth.' At that thought I could have called unto the grave to open for me. Her unaccountable and lengthened silence, in spite of all the urgency and entreaties of my letters for a reply, filled me with presentiments the most fearful. Oh, God--oh, God, they were nothing to the truth! "At last I arrived at--; my carriage stopped at the very house--my whole frame was perfectly frozen with dread--I trembled from limb to limb--the ice of a thousand winters seemed curdling through my blood. The bell rung--once, twice--no answer. I would have leaped out of the carriage--I would have forced an entrance, but I was unable to move. A man fettered and spell-bound by an incubus, is less helpless than I was. At last, an old female I had never seen before, appeared.