Besides, perhaps Matilda might not be guilty--perhaps she was deceived; and though some scheme of villainy and destruction to himself was preparing, she might be the dupe, and not the coadjutor, of Zastrozzi. The idea that she was innocent soothed him; for he was anxious to make up, in his own mind, for the injustice which he had been guilty of towards her: and though he could not conquer the disgusting ideas, the unaccountable detestations, which often, in spite of himself, filled his soul towards her, he was willing to overcome what he considered but as an illusion of the imagination, and to pay that just tribute of esteem to her virtues which they demanded. Whilst these ideas, although confused and unconnected, passed in Verezzi’s brain, Matilda again entered the apartment. Her countenance exhibited the strongest marks of agitation, and full of inexpressible and confused meaning was her dark eye, as she addressed some trifling question to Verezzi, in a hurried accent, and threw herself into a chair beside him. “Verezzi!” exclaimed Matilda, after a pause equally painful to both--“Verezzi! I am deeply grieved to be the messenger of bad news--willingly would I withhold the fatal truth from you; yet, by some other means, it may meet your unprepared ear. I have something dreadful, shocking, to relate; can you bear the recital?” The nerveless fingers of Verezzi dropped the pencil--he seized Matilda’s hand, and, in accents almost inarticulate from terror, conjured her to explain her horrid surmises. “Oh! my friend! my sister!” exclaimed Matilda, as well-feigned tears coursed down her cheeks,--“oh! she is----” “What! what!” interrupted Verezzi, as the idea of something having befallen his adored Julia filled his maddened brain with tenfold horror: for often had Matilda declared that since she could not become his wife she would willingly be his friend, and had even called Julia her sister. “Oh!” exclaimed Matilda, hiding her face in her hands, “Julia--Julia--whom you love, is dead.” Unable to withhold his fleeting faculties from a sudden and chilly horror which seized them, Verezzi sank forward, and, fainting, fell at Matilda’s feet. In vain, for some time, was every effort to recover him. Every restorative which was administered, for a long time, was unavailing; at last his lips unclosed--he seemed to take his breath easier--he moved--he slowly opened his eyes. CHAPTER VII. His head reposed upon Matilda’s bosom; he started from it violently, as if stung by a scorpion, and fell upon the floor. His eyes rolled horribly, and seemed as if starting from their sockets. “Is she then dead?--is Julia dead?” in accents scarcely articulate exclaimed Verezzi. “Ah, Matilda! was it you then who destroyed her? was it by thy jealous hand that she sank to an untimely grave? Ah, Matilda! Matilda! say that she yet lives! Alas! what have I to do in the world without Julia? an empty, uninteresting void!”