Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 253: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

248 BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. until my own voice sounded vague like the voice in a dream. I think I lay down and slept. ‘<I awoke to find myself in a bed; my mother’s terrible face bending over me. My head was bandaged; I was so weak that I could scarcely speak. The daylight was stream- ing in. es ‘The bridge!’ I moaned. <‘ Did you find him at the bridge?” “? Hush? she said. ‘You are mad. You have killed your brother, and you are insane. I must send you to an asylum?!’ ‘““My will was quite passive. I believed that I must be ‘Insane; to be shut up and treated like an irrational being was an idea which rather pleased me; I was dead to life now. ‘“ Before the evening of that day I was an innate of Doctor Oaks’ private asylum, and calmly awaited the develop- ment of the madness which I felt stealing over me. All these weeks of imprisonment I was almost as imbecile as any of my companions; my intellect. was dwarfed and petrified. Memory was mercifully erased from my catalogue of torments.” | ‘« But when I suddenly saw the face of my sister, gazing at me through the bars, so full of love—so full of sorrow, my heart awoke with a fearful bound. ‘The old, blessed life rushed back to me in a blinding flash of recollection; joy sent the phantom of madness thrilling from my brain: I rushed to embrace my long-lost Ivanilla. ‘These first days with you were very strange and sweet; my mind was yet weak, and I could not grasp at the sorrows of my lot. Your love was enough to engage my attention. ‘But little by little I awoke from my long trance; I realized that I should never have returned to Guiseppe Rienzi’s roof again; that I did dishonor to my mother and insult to my sweet foster-mother, by remaining; that, possibly, I might bring danger on your heads by returning, to you. ce You remember the trial? I dared throw no light upon it; I almost hoped that I would be condemned, that the curse of my life might end. What was my astonishment to hear that Cecil Beaumont was not dead! that my mother had deceived me. CORNUCG OOO S (©)