CHAPTER XVI.

FURENS AMORIS.


Night closed in while Rudolph was on his way to the notary's. The pavilion
occupied by Jacques Ferrand was buried in profound obscurity. The wind
howled, the rain fell as during that gloomy night when Cecily fled forever
from the notary's house. Extended on a bed in his sleeping apartment,
feebly lighted by a lamp, Jacques Ferrand was dressed in black trousers and
vest; one of the sleeves of his shirt was turned back, and a ligature
around his attenuated arm announced that he had just been bled. Polidori
was standing near the bed, with one hand on the bolster, and appeared to
regard the features of his accomplice with inquietude.

Nothing could be more hideously frightful than the face of Ferrand, who was
then plunged into that torpor which ordinarily succeeds violent attacks. Of
a mortal pallor, strongly relieved by the shadows of the alcove, his face,
streaming with a cold sweat, announced the last stage of consumption; his
closed eyelids were so swollen and injected with blood, that they appeared
like two reddish lobes in the middle of this visage of cadaverous lividity.

"One more attack like the last, and all is over," said Polidori, in a low
tone, and, retiring from the bed, he commenced walking slowly up and down
the room.

"Just now," he resumed, "during the attack which nearly proved fatal, I
thought myself in a dream, as I heard him describe all the monstrous
hallucinations which I crossed his brain. His sense of hearing was of a
sensibility so incredibly painful that, although I spoke to him as low as