The Count of Monte Cristo

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of an avenging angel. Morrel, overpowered, turned around in the
arm-chair; a delicious torpor permeated every vein. A change of
ideas presented themselves to his brain, like a new design on
the kaleidoscope. Enervated, prostrate, and breathless, he became
unconscious of outward objects; he seemed to be entering that vague
delirium preceding death. He wished once again to press the count's
hand, but his own was immovable. He wished to articulate a last
farewell, but his tongue lay motionless and heavy in his throat, like
a stone at the mouth of a sepulchre. Involuntarily his languid eyes
closed, and still through his eyelashes a well-known form seemed to move
amid the obscurity with which he thought himself enveloped.

The count had just opened a door. Immediately a brilliant light from the
next room, or rather from the palace adjoining, shone upon the room in
which he was gently gliding into his last sleep. Then he saw a woman of
marvellous beauty appear on the threshold of the door separating the
two rooms. Pale, and sweetly smiling, she looked like an angel of mercy