"Where are you going? Do not abandon me!" cried Sarah, half rising, and
extending toward Rudolph her supplicating hands. "Do not leave me alone! I
am dying!"
"Alone! no! no! I leave you with the specter of your daughter, whose death
you have caused!"
Sarah, frantic, threw herself on her knees, uttering a cry of affright, as
if an alarming phantom had appeared to her. "Pity! I die!"
"Die, then, accursed!" answered Rudolph, frightful with rage. "Now I must
have the life of your accomplice, for it is you who delivered your daughter
to her executioner!"
And Rudolph ordered his coach to be rapidly driven to the house of Jacques
Ferrand.
CHAPTER XVI.
FURENS AMORIS.
Night closed in while Rudolph was on his way to the notary's. The pavilion
occupied by Jacques Ferrand was buried in profound obscurity. The wind
howled, the rain fell as during that gloomy night when Cecily fled forever
from the notary's house. Extended on a bed in his sleeping apartment,
feebly lighted by a lamp, Jacques Ferrand was dressed in black trousers and
vest; one of the sleeves of his shirt was turned back, and a ligature
around his attenuated arm announced that he had just been bled. Polidori
was standing near the bed, with one hand on the bolster, and appeared to
regard the features of his accomplice with inquietude.
Nothing could be more hideously frightful than the face of Ferrand, who was
then plunged into that torpor which ordinarily succeeds violent attacks.
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