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The volcano of feeling which surged within her burst forth, not in sobs and cries, not in passionate interjections, but in the tones of absolute horror in which she uttered the two names that had severally been to her the dearest upon earth,—“Leon!” and “Herlinda!” and which at that moment were equally synonymous of all most terrible, most dreaded, and were the most powerful factors amid the love, the honor, the pride, the passions and prejudices which controlled her being.

For a time she stood in the centre of her apartment, striking unconsciously with her clenched hand upon her breast blows that at another time would have been keenly felt, but the swelling emotions within rendered her insensible to mere bodily pain. Indeed, as the moments passed it brought a certain relief; and as her walking to and fro brought her at last in front of the window which opened upon the broad prospect to the west, she paused, and looked long and fixedly toward the reduction-works, as if her vision could penetrate the stone walls, and read the mind which had perished with the man who lay murdered within them.