Should I confide in the testimony of my ears? If that were true,
it was Pleyel that had been hitherto immured in the opposite
chamber; he whom my rueful fancy had depicted in so many ruinous
and ghastly shapes; he whose footsteps had been listened to with
such inquietude! What is man, that knowledge is so sparingly
conferred upon him! that his heart should be wrung with distress,
and his frame be exanimated with fear, though his safety be
encompassed with impregnable walls! What are the bounds of human
imbecility! He that warned me of the presence of my foe refused
the intimation by which so many racking fears would have been
precluded.
Yet who would have imagined the arrival of Pleyel at such an hour?
His tone was desponding and anxious. Why this unseasonable
summons? and why this hasty departure? Some tidings he, perhaps,
bears of mysterious and unwelcome import.
My impatience would not allow me to consume much time in
deliberation; I hastened down. Pleyel I found standing at a
window, with eyes cast down as in meditation, and arms folded on
his breast. Every line in his countenance was pregnant with
sorrow.
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