Page:Glenarvon (Volume 3).djvu/96

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in one instant of time, terrors and punishments above the boundless apprehension even of an evil imagination to conceive.

Calantha's eye, convulsed and fixed, perceived not the objects which surrounded her. Her thoughts, quick as the delirious dream of fever, varied with new and dreadful pictures of calamity. It was the last struggle of nature.—The spirit within her trembled at approaching dissolution.—The shock was too great for mortal reason to resist. Glenarvon—Glenarvon! that form—that look alone appeared to awaken her recollection, but all else was confusion and pain.

It was a scene of horror. May it for ever be blotted from the remembrance of the human heart! It claims no sympathy: it was the dreadful exhibition of a mind which passion had misled, and reason had ceased to guide. Calantha bowed not before that Being who had seen fit to punish her in his wrath. She sought nor vengeance, nor future hope.