'_Madness--fiercest madness--revelled through his brain._ He raised the poniard high, but Julia rushed forwards, and in accents of desperation, in a voice of alarmed tenderness, besought him to spare himself--to spare her--for all might yet be well. '_"Oh! never, never!" exclaimed Verezzi, frantically, "no peace but in the grave for me. I am--I am--married to Matilda."_ 'Saying this, he fell backwards upon a sofa in strong convulsions, yet his hand still firmly grasped the fatal poniard. 'Matilda, meanwhile, fixedly contemplated the scene. Fiercest passions raged through her breast: vengeance, disappointed love--disappointed in the instant, too, when she had supposed happiness to be hers for ever, rendered her bosom the scene of wildest anarchy. 'Yet she spoke not--she moved not--but collected in herself, stood waiting the issue of that event, which had so unexpectedly dissolved _her visions of air-built ecstasy_. 'Serened to firmness from despair, Julia administered everything which could restore Verezzi with the most unremitting attention. At last he recovered. _He slowly raised himself, and starting from the sofa where he lay, his eyes rolling wildly_, and his whole frame convulsed by fiercest agitation, _he raised the dagger which he still retained, and, with a bitter smile of exultation, plunged it into his bosom!--His soul fled without a groan, and his body fell to the floor, bathed in purple blood._' THE DAGGER SCENE IN 'ST. IRVYNE.' '_"Wilt thou be mine?" exclaimed the enraptured Olympia, as a ray of hope arose in her mind. "Never! never can I," groaned the agitated Wolfstein, "I am irrevocably, indissolutely another's."--Maddened by this death-blow to all expectations of happiness_, which the deluded Olympia had so fondly anticipated, she leaped wildly from the bed. A light and flowing night-dress alone veiled her form; her alabaster bosom was shaded by the light ringlets of her hair which rested unconfined upon it. She threw herself at the feet of Wolfstein. On a sudden, as if struck by some thought, she started convulsively from the earth: for an instant she paused.