Narrow streams of light flitted
across the dense vapours, visible only in their gleam. Involuntarily did
Hildebrand pass on: impelled as if by some unseen but resistless power,
he durst not retrace his footsteps. His tread was slow and fearful, as
he traversed the long and dreary vista. Every sense was now in full
exercise;--his faculties becoming more acute by the extremity of terror
he endured. His ear caught the slightest sound--his eye, the least
motion that glimmered across his path. Sometimes a terrific shape seemed
to glide past: he brushed the cold and clammy damps from his brow, and
it vanished.
Suddenly a door opened at the extremity of the gallery, and a faint
light streamed from the crevice. Voices--children's voices--were heard
in the chamber. He rushed onward. Rage, frantic and uncontrolled,
possessed him, as he beheld the babes, the intended victims of his
avarice, in all the bloom of health and innocence, unconscious of
danger, bounding through the apartment, together with their nurse and
protector, Alice! Goaded by his insatiate tormentor, he drew a poniard
from his vest, and rushed on the unoffending objects of his hate.
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