Page 101 of 173 THE ASSIGNATION - The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 2

_"Stay for me there! I will not fail_

_To meet thee in that hollow vale."_

In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine, he threw himself at full-length upon an ottoman.

A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock at
the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a second disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room, and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent words, "My mistress! - my mistress! - Poisoned! - poisoned! Oh, beautiful - oh, beautiful Aphrodite!"

Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the
sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs were rigid - his lips were livid - his lately beaming eyes were riveted in _death_. I staggered back towards the table - my hand fell upon a cracked and blackened goblet - and a consciousness of the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.

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		"More than one who says life is brief, finds too long the day." Christian Friedrich Hebbel