"The moment that I gathered, from Gertrude's broken sentences, their meaning, that moment the demon entered into my soul. All human feelings seemed to fly from my heart; it shrunk into one burning, and thirsty, and fiery want--that was for revenge. I would have sprung from the bedside, but Gertrude's hand clung to me, and detained me; the damp, chill grasp, grew colder and colder--it ceased--the hand fell--I turned--one slight, but awful shudder, went over that face, made yet more wan, by the light of the waning and ghastly moon--one convulsion shook the limbs--one murmur passed the falling and hueless lips. I cannot tell you the rest-- you know--you can guess it. "That day week we buried her in the lonely churchyard--where she had, in her lucid moments, wished to lie--by the side of her mother." CHAPTER LXXV. I BREATHED, But not the breath of human life; A serpent round my heart was wreathed, And stung my very thought to strife. --The Giaour. "Thank Heaven, the most painful part of my story is at an end. You will now be able to account for our meeting in the church-yard at _______. I secured myself a lodging at a cottage not far from the spot which held Gertrude's remains. Night after night I wandered to that lonely place, and longed for a couch beside the sleeper, whom I mourned in the selfishness of my soul. I prostrated myself on the mound; I humbled myself to tears. In the overflowing anguish of my heart I forgot all that had aroused its stormier passions into life. Revenge, hatred,--all vanished. I lifted up my face to the tender heavens: I called aloud to the silent and placid air; and when I turned again to the unconscious mound, I thought of nothing but the sweetness of our early love and the bitterness of her early death. It was in such moments that your footstep broke upon my grief: the instant others had seen me,--other eyes had penetrated the sanctity of my regret,--from that instant, whatever was more soft and holy in the passions and darkness of my mind seemed to vanish away like a scroll. I again returned to the intense and withering remembrance which was henceforward to make the very key and pivot of my existence. I again recalled the last night of Gertrude's life; I again shuddered at the low murmured sounds, whose dreadful sense broke slowly upon my soul. I again felt the cold-cold, slimy grasp of those wan and dying fingers; and I again nerved my heart to an iron strength, and vowed deep, deep-rooted, endless, implacable revenge.