She could no longer contain herself, but, in an ecstasy of pleasure, as excessive as her grief and horror before had been violent, in rapid and hurried accents questioned the physician. The physician, with an expressive smile, pressed his finger on his lip. She understood the movement, and though her heart was dilated with sudden and excessive delight, she smothered her joy, as she had before her grief, and gazed with rapturous emotion on the countenance of Verezzi, as, to her expectant eyes, a blush of animation tinged his before pallid countenance. Matilda took his hand--the pulses yet beat with feverish violence. She gazed upon his countenance--the film, which before had overspread his eye, disappeared; returning expression pervaded its orbit, but it was the expression of deep, of rooted grief. The physician made a sign to Matilda to withdraw. She drew the curtain before her, and in anxious expectation awaited the event. A deep, a long-drawn sigh, at last burst from Verezzi’s bosom. He raised himself, his eyes seemed to follow some form which imagination had portrayed in the remote obscurity of the apartment, for the shades of night were but partially dissipated by a lamp which burnt on a table behind. He raised his almost nerveless arm, and passed it across his eyes, as if to convince himself that what he saw was not an illusion of the imagination. He looked at the physician, who sat near to, and silent by the bedside, and patiently awaited whatever event might occur. Verezzi slowly rose, and violently exclaimed, “Julia! Julia! my long-lost Julia, come!” And then, more collected, he added, in a mournful tone, “Ah, no! you are dead; lost, lost for ever!” He turned round and saw the physician, but Matilda was still concealed. “Where am I?” inquired Verezzi, addressing the physician. “Safe, safe,” answered he, “compose yourself; all will be well.” “Ah, but Julia?” inquired Verezzi, with a tone so expressive of despair, as threatened returning delirium. “Oh! compose yourself,” said the humane physician; “you have been very ill; this is but an illusion of the imagination; and even now, I fear that you labour under that delirium which attends a brain-fever.” Verezzi’s nerveless frame again sunk upon the bed--still his eyes were open, and fixed upon vacancy; he seemed to be endeavouring to arrange the confusion of ideas which pressed upon his brain. Matilda undrew the curtain; but, as her eye met the physician’s, his glance told her to place it in its original situation.