His eyes glared, and shriek after shriek broke forth from his parched
and fevered lips.
"No, I did not kill my daughter!--I did not! she is not dead!
Yes, she is dead! but I did not kill her--poor girl!
Look! that is she! No, it cannot be! she cannot come here!
it cannot be my poor Clotelle."
At the sound of her own name, coming from the maniac's lips,
Clotelle gasped for breath, and her husband saw that she had
grown deadly pale. It seemed evident to him that the man was
either guilty of some terrible act, or imagined himself to be.
His eyeballs rolled in their sockets, and his features showed
that he was undergoing "the tortures of that inward hell,"
which seemed to set his whole brain on fire. After recovering
her self-possession and strength, Clotelle approached the bedside,
and laid her soft hand upon the stranger's hot and fevered brow.
One long, loud shriek rang out on the air, and a piercing cry,
"It is she!--Yes, it is she! I see, I see! Ah! no, it is not my daughter!
She would not come to me if she could!" broke forth from him.
"I am your daughter," said Clotelle, as she pressed her handkerchief
to her face, and sobbed aloud.
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