rather have been placed, stiff and cold in a dull leaden coffin, than

borne an envied bride to my rich, glittering house. I should have

known that her heart was with the dark-eyed boy whose name I once

heard her breathe in her troubled sleep; and that she had been

sacrificed to me, to relieve the poverty of the old, white-headed man

and the haughty brothers.

'I don't remember forms or faces now, but I know the girl was

beautiful. I know she was; for in the bright moonlight nights, when I

start up from my sleep, and all is quiet about me, I see, standing still

and motionless in one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure

with long black hair, which, streaming down her back, stirs with no

earthly wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on me, and never wink or

close. Hush! the blood chills at my heart as I write it down - that form

is HERS; the face is very pale, and the eyes are glassy bright; but I

know them well. That figure never moves; it never frowns and mouths

as others do, that fill this place sometimes; but it is much more

dreadful to me, even than the spirits that tempted me many years ago

it comes fresh from the grave; and is so very death-like.

For nearly a year I saw that face grow paler; for nearly a year I saw

the tears steal down the mournful cheeks, and never knew the cause.

I found it out at last though. They could not keep it from me long. She

had never liked me; I had never thought she did: she despised my

wealth, and hated the splendour in which she lived; but I had not

expected that. She loved another. This I had never thought of. Strange

feelings came over me, and thoughts, forced upon me by some secret

power, whirled round and round my brain. I did not hate her, though I

hated the boy she still wept for. I pitied - yes, I pitied - the wretched

life to which her cold and selfish relations had doomed her. I knew

that she could not live long; but the thought that before her death she

might give birth to some ill-fated being, destined to hand down

madness to its offspring, determined me. I resolved to kill her.

'For many weeks I thought of poison, and then of drowning, and then

of fire. A fine sight, the grand house in flames, and the madman's wife

smouldering away to cinders. Think of the jest of a large reward, too,

and of some sane man swinging in the wind for a deed he never did,

and all through a madman's cunning! I thought often of this, but I

gave it up at last. Oh! the pleasure of stropping the razor day after

day, feeling the sharp edge, and thinking of the gash one stroke of its

thin, bright edge would make! 'At last the old spirits who had been

with me so often before whispered in my ear that the time was come,

and thrust the open razor into my hand. I grasped it firmly, rose softly

from the bed, and leaned over my sleeping wife. Her face was buried in

her hands. I withdrew them softly, and they fell listlessly on her

bosom. She had been weeping; for the traces of the tears were still wet

upon her cheek. Her face was calm and placid; and even as I looked

The Pickwick Papers