Before her lay her rival, pierced with innumerable wounds, whose head reclined on Verezzi’s bosom, and whose angelic features, even in death, a smile of affection pervaded. There she herself stood, an isolated guilty being. A fiercer paroxysm of passion now seized her: in an agony of horror, too great to be described, she tore her hair in handfuls--she blasphemed the power who had given her being, and imprecated eternal torments upon the mother who had borne her. “And is it for this,” added the ferocious Matilda--“is it for horror, for torments such as these, that He, whom monks call all-merciful, has created me?” She seized the dagger which lay on the floor. “Ah, friendly dagger,” she exclaimed, in a voice of fiend-like horror, “would that thy blow produced annihilation! with what pleasure then would I clasp thee to my heart!” She raised it high--she gazed on it--the yet warm blood of the innocent Julia trickled from its point. The guilty Matilda shrunk at death--she let fall the upraised dagger--her soul had caught a glimpse of the misery which awaits the wicked hereafter, and, spite of her contempt of religion--spite of her, till now, too firm dependence on the doctrines of atheism, she trembled at futurity; and a voice from within, which whispers, “thou shalt never die!” spoke daggers to Matilda’s soul. Whilst thus she stood entranced in a delirium of despair, the night wore away, and the domestic who attended her, surprised at the unusual hour to which they had prolonged the banquet, came to announce the lateness of the hour; but opening the door, and perceiving Matilda’s garments stained with blood, she started back with affright, without knowing the full extent of horror which the chamber contained, and alarmed the other domestics with an account that Matilda had been stabbed. In a crowd they all came to the door, but started back in terror when they saw Verezzi and Julia stretched lifeless on the floor. Summoning fortitude from despair, Matilda loudly called for them to return: but fear and horror overbalanced her commands, and, wild with affright, they all rushed from the chamber, except Ferdinand, who advanced to Matilda, and demanded an explanation. Matilda gave it, in few and hurried words. Ferdinand again quitted the apartment, and told the credulous domestics, that an unknown female had surprised Verezzi and Matilda; that she had stabbed Verezzi, and then committed suicide.