For a time Matilda stood immovable. At last she looked on Verezzi; she gazed downwards upon his majestic and youthful figure, she looked upon his soul-illumined countenance, and tenfold love assailed her softened soul. She raised him--in an oblivious delirium of sudden fondness she clasped him to her bosom, and, in wild and hurried expressions, asserted her right to his love. Her breast palpitated with fiercest emotions; she pressed her burning lips to his; most fervent, most voluptuous sensations of ecstasy revelled through her bosom. Verezzi caught the infection; in an instant of oblivion, every oath of fidelity which he had sworn to another, like a baseless cloud, dissolved away; a Lethean torpor crept over his senses; he forgot Julia, or remembered her only as an uncertain vision, which floated before his fancy more as an ideal being of another world, whom he might hereafter adore there, than as an enchanting and congenial female, to whom his oaths of eternal fidelity had been given. Overcome by unutterable transports of returning bliss, she started from his embrace--she seized his hand--her face was overspread with a heightened colour as she pressed it to her lips. “And are you then mine--mine for ever?” rapturously exclaimed Matilda. “Oh! I am thine--thine to all eternity,” returned the infatuated Verezzi: “no earthly power shall sever us; joined by congeniality of soul, united by a bond to which God himself bore witness.” He again clasped her to his bosom--again, as an earnest of fidelity, imprinted a fervent kiss on her glowing cheek; and, overcome by the violent and resistless emotions of the moment, swore, that nor heaven nor hell should cancel the union which he here solemnly and unequivocally renewed. Verezzi filled an overflowing goblet. “Do you love me?” inquired Matilda. “May the lightning of heaven consume me, if I adore thee not to distraction! may I be plunged in endless torments, if my love for thee, celestial Matilda, endures not for ever!” Matilda’s eyes flashed fiercest triumph; the exultingly delightful feelings of her soul were too much for utterance--she spoke not, but gazed fixedly on Verezzi’s countenance. CHAPTER XV. “That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, ye murdering ministers, Wherever, in your sightless substances, Ye wait on nature’s mischief.”--Macbeth. Verezzi raised the goblet which he had just filled, and exclaimed, in an impassioned tone--