26 THE TWO MONUMENTS. 



hearing a noise in Mordant's room. I took the liglit, wliich was 

 still burning, and hastened there. I found him sitting up in bed ; 

 his eyes staring vacantly before him ; his hands held out to their 

 full ej^tent, as if to clutch something within his reach. — " See ! see l" 

 cried he, at the utmost pitch of his voice, — "there — there — 'tis 

 Emily ! she calls me ! Father, let me go ! she shall be mine — 

 mine in spite of all ;" and exhausted by the effort, his hands fell by 

 his side, and he sank hack on his pillows in a swoon. I instantly 

 sent for assistance. I looked at my watch ; it was just two o'clock. 

 The physician soon came. After examining his patient, he -shook 

 his head. " Your friend," said he, " will revive ; but his reason has 

 fled." He was right ; Mordant recovered in about an hour ; but he 

 awoke an idiot. 



As early as I could I called at the lodgings of Emily, and was 

 sui'prised to find the windows closed. I was admitted into the draw- 

 ing-room, where Emily's mother was sitting. She arose on, my 

 entrance j for some time she could not speak ; at last she said, 

 " O, sir, my Emily is dead !" she could say no more ; her heart 

 was full. I called an attendant, and left the room. I enquired 

 before I left the house the tim.e of Emily's death ; it was two o'clock, 

 the very iiour I had been awoke by my friend. Thus did the spirits 

 of two beings, who loved each other best on earth, commune 

 together before one took its flight to heaven. A plain white marble 

 monument marks the spot where Emily is buried; and though 

 years have passed away since its erection, the remembrance of the 

 fair girl whose death it records still draws me to the spot. I pass 

 on a few paces to another of the same fonn, but in black marble — it 

 points out the grave of Harry Mordant. 



