feelings. Her eye followed him, go where he would; she hung upon his least word, and she shrunk away from her sister. The proposed visit to his mother brought on such a passion of tears, that he had not the heart to insist upon it–especially when he looked upon her pale, sunken cheek, and watched her slow dispirited step. Once or twice he saw Minna watching her with a wild, strange glance in her large, black eyes, as if there was an intentive feeling of jealousy.
It was now the first week in June, and the weather was unusually hot; and there was thunder in the air, which added to the oppression. The moon, too, was at its full; and Minna, always restless at that time, was now unusually so. At last, towards evening, she sank on the window-seat in a deep slumber. Pauline was walking on the terrace below; and Ernest, who saw that she was scarcely equal to the fatigue, went down to give her his assistance. She took his arm, and they walked up and down together. At last she leant over the balustrade, and her eyes filled with tears as she watched the moonlight turning the flowers to silver.
“I wish,” said she, “I were a flower–happy in the sunshine–happy in the soft night air. No beating heart within, to make me wretched.” And she dropped her head on his arm, and wept.
Before Ernest has time to utter even a few soothing words, a bright blade glittered in the moonlight, and Pauline sunk with a faint scream on the pavement–Minna had stabbed her sister to the heart! There she stood: her cheek flushed with the deepest crimson, and her eyes flashing the wild light of insanity–waving the weapon she had so fatally used. It was the little Indian dagger Ernest had lent her to sever the song tress of hair. She had concealed it till this moment.
“Yes,” cried she, “I have killed her at last. They thought I did not know her, but I did. She took away my father’s heart from me, and would have taken away my husband’s; but I have killed her at last.”
By this time the servants came rushing from all parts. At their approach, Minna seemed seized with some vague fear, and attempted to fly. Ernest had just time to pass his arms around her, thought she struggled violently. They raised Pauline, but the last spark of life had fled–the pale and lovely features were set in death!
Minna lived on for years–her insanity taking, every succeeding year, a darker colour. Ernest never left her side. Fierce of sullen, violent or desponding, he watched her through every mood. She wore herself away to a shadow, till it was a marvel how that frail form endured. For months before her death, she was almost ungovernable, and did not know him the least. She scarcely ever slept, but one night slumber overpowered her. The sun was shining brightly into the chamber, and its light fell upon the whitened hair and careworn features of her husband, who had been watching by her for hours. A sweet and meek expression was in her eyes when she awoke.
“Ernest, dearest Ernest,” said she, in a soft, low whisper. She raised her head from the pillow, and, like a child, put up her mouth to kiss him. She sank back: her last breath had passed in that kiss!
He laid her in the same tomb with her father and sister; and the next day, the noble, the wealthy, and still handsome Count von Hermanstadt entered the order of St. Francis.
