On a table, in the
centre of a group of black and grinning companions in misfortune, sat all
that was left of Jacques Colis, who had been removed from the bone-house
below to this at the convent for purposes connected with the coming
investigation. The body was accidentally placed in such an attitude that
the face was brought within the line of the parting light, while it had no
other covering than the clothes worn by the murdered man in life.
Sigismund gazed long at the pallid lineaments. They were still distorted
with the agony produced by separating the soul from the body. All feeling
of resentment for his sister's wrongs was lost in pity for the fate that
had so suddenly overtaken one, in whom the passions, the interests, and
the complicated machinery of this state of being, were so actively at
work. Then came the bitter apprehension that his own father, in a moment
of ungovernable anger, excited by the accumulated wrongs that bore so hard
on him and his, might really have been the instrument of effecting the
fearful and sudden change. Sickening with the thought, the young man
turned and walked away towards the brow of the declivity.
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