I collected
all my resolution to support me in this affecting scene. I saw my
dear lord in extremity. The beauties of his youth were all decayed;
yet his eyes, though languid, retained unspeakable sweetness and
expression. He felt his end approaching, put forth his hand, and,
with a look full of complacency and benevolence, uttered such
a tender tale--good Heaven! how had I deserved such accumulated
affliction, the bare remembrance of which now melts me into tears?
Human nature could not undergo my situation without suffering an
ecstasy of grief. I clasped him in my arms, and kissed him a thousand
times, with the most violent emotions of woe; but I was torn from
his embrace, and in a little time he was ravished for ever from my
view.
"On that fatal morning, which put a period to his life, I saw the
duchess of L-- approach my bed, and, from her appearance, concluded
that he was no more; yet I begged she would not confirm the unhappy
presage by announcing his death; and she accordingly preserved the
most emphatic silence. I got up, and trod softly over his head, as
if I had been afraid of interrupting his repose.
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