Their patience and tenderness were at last rewarded,--Amelie gave a
flutter of reviving life. Her dark eyes opened and stared wildly
for a moment at her companions with a blank look, until they rested
upon the veil and orange blossoms on the head of Agathe, who had put
them on in such a merry mood and forgotten in the sudden catastrophe
to take them off again.
The sight of the bridal veil and wreath seemed to rouse Amelie to
consciousness. The terrible news of the murder of the Bourgeois
by Le Gardeur flashed upon her mind, and she pressed her burning
eyelids hard shut with her hands, as if not to see the hideous
thought.
Her companions wept, but Amelie found no relief in tears as she
murmured the name of the Bourgeois, Le Gardeur, and Pierre.
They spoke softly to her in tones of tenderest sympathy, but she
scarcely heeded them, absorbed as she was in deepest despair, and
still pressing her eyes shut as if she had done with day and cared
no more to see the bright sunshine that streamed through the
lattice. The past, present, and future of her whole life started up
before her in terrible distinctness, and seemed concentrated in one
present spot of mental anguish.
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