In the mean while, Lady Ashton, her husband, and their assistants in
vain sought Lucy in the bridal bed and in the chamber. There was no
private passage from the room, and they began to think that she must
have thrown herself from the window, when one of the company, holding
his torch lower than the rest, discovered something white in the corner
of the great old-fashioned chimney of the apartment. Here they found
the unfortunate girl seated, or rather couched like a hare upon its
form--her head-gear dishevelled, her night-clothes torn and dabbled with
blood, her eyes glazed, and her features convulsed into a wild paroxysm
of insanity. When she saw herself discovered, she gibbered, made mouths,
and pointed at them with her bloody fingers, with the frantic gestures
of an exulting demoniac.
Female assistance was now hastily summoned; the unhappy bride was
overpowered, not without the use of some force. As they carried her over
the threshold, she looked down, and uttered the only articulate words
that she had yet spoken, saying, with a sort of grinning exultation,
"So, you have ta'en up your bonny bridegroom?" She was, by the
shuddering assistants, conveyed to another and more retired apartment,
where she was secured as her situation required, and closely watched.
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