“Think you,” replied Verezzi, “that because my Julia’s spirit is no longer enshrined in its earthly form, that I am the less devotedly, the less irrevocably hers?--No! no! I was hers, I am hers, and to all eternity shall be hers: and when my soul, divested of mortality, departs into another world, even amid the universal wreck of nature, attracted by congeniality of sentiment, it will seek the unspotted spirit of my idolized Julia. Oh, Matilda! thy attention, thy kindness, calls for my warmest gratitude--thy virtue demands my sincerest esteem; but, devoted to the memory of my Julia, I can _love_ none but her.” Matilda’s whole frame trembled with unconquerable emotion, as thus determinedly he rejected her; but, calming the more violent passions, a flood of tears rushed from her eyes; and, as she leant over the back of a sofa on which she reclined, her sobs were audible. Verezzi’s soul was softened towards her--he raised the humbled Matilda, and bid her be comforted, for he was conscious that her tenderness towards him deserved not an unkind return. “Oh! forgive, forgive me!” exclaimed Matilda, with well-feigned humility: “I knew not what I said.” She then abruptly left the saloon. Reaching her own apartment, Matilda threw herself on the floor, in an agony of mind too great to be described. Those infuriate passions, restrained as they had been in the presence of Verezzi, now agitated her soul with inconceivable terror. Shook by sudden and irresistible emotions, she gave vent to her despair. “Where, then, is the boasted mercy of God,” exclaimed the frantic Matilda, “if he suffer his creatures to endure such agony as this? or where his wisdom, if he implant in the heart passions furious--uncontrollable--as mine, doomed to destroy their happiness?” Outraged pride, disappointed love, and infuriate revenge, revelled through her bosom. Revenge, which called for innocent blood--the blood of the hapless Julia. Her passions were now wound up to the highest pitch of desperation. In indescribable agony of mind, she dashed her head against the floor--she imprecated a thousand curses upon Julia, and swore eternal revenge. At last, exhausted by their own violence, the warring passions subsided--a calm took possession of her soul--she thought again upon Zastrozzi’s advice--Was she now cool? was she now collected? She was now immersed in a chain of thought; unaccountable, even to herself, was the serenity which had succeeded. CHAPTER X. Persevering in the prosecution of her design, the time passed away slowly to Matilda; for Verezzi’s frame, becoming every day more emaciated, threatened, to her alarmed imagination, approaching dissolution--slowly to Verezzi, for he waited with impatience for the arrival of death, since nothing but misery was his in this world. Useless would it be to enumerate the conflicts in Matilda’s soul: suffice it to say that they were many, and that their violence progressively increased.