Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 4).djvu/169

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met with a little confusion on both sides; she was greatly affected.

"Your unhappy brother (said she) has, within the last two hours, been restored to his reason; the physicians say it is the last effort of nature, and bespeaks approaching death: He has been informed of your arrival; much caution was used to break it to him, but he bore it without any great emotion. He said he wished to be private with Ernest, and I withdrew. Now I will inform him you are here."

Ferdinand was so inexpressibly shocked, and so reluctant to see a man in the agonies of death, whose life had been so culpable, that when the Countess returned in tears, and besought him to hasten into the room, his legs trembled under him, and with great difficulty he tottered into the apartment, where a sight met him sufficiently dreadful to appal the stoutest resolution.

Rhodophil was supported by pillows, his face long, pale, and distorted, his eyes wildly