A convulsive shriek burst from the lips of Glorvina. She raised her eyes to heaven, then fixed them on her unfortunate lover, and dropped lifeless into his arms--a pause of indiscribable emotion succeeded. The Prince, aghast, gazed on the hapless pair; thus seemingly entwined in the embrace of death. The priest transfixed with pity and amazement let fall the sacred volume from his hands. Emotions of an indescribable nature mingled in the countenance of the bridegroom. The priest was the first to dissolve the spell, and to recover a comparative presence of mind; he descended from the altar and endeavoured to raise and extricate the lifeless Glorvina from the arms of her unhappy lover, but the effort was vain. Clasping her to his heart closer than ever, the almost frantic M-------- exclaimed, “She is mine! mine in the eye of heaven! and no human power can part us!”
“Merciful providence!” exclaimed the bridegroom faintly, and sunk on the shoulders of the priest. The voice pierced to the heart of his rival; he raised his eyes, fell lifeless against the railing of the altar, faintly uttering, “God of Omnipotence! my father!” Glorvina released from the nerveless clasp of her lover, sunk on her knees between the father and the son, alternately fixed her wild regard on both, then suddenly turning them on the now apparently expiring Prince, she sprang forward, and throwing her arms round his neck, frantically cried, “It is my father they will destroy and sobbing convulsively, sunk, overcome, on his shoulder.”
The Prince pressed her to his heart, and looking round with a ghastly and inquiring glance for the explanation of that mystery no one had the power to unravel, and by which all seemed overwhelmed. At last, with an effort of expiring strength, he raised himself in his seat, entwined his arm round his child, and intimated by his eloquent looks, that he wished the mysterious father and his rival son to approach. The priest led the former towards him: the latter sprang to his feet, and hid his head in his mantle: all the native dignity of his character now seemed to irradiate the countenance of the Prince of Inismore; his eyes sparkled with a transient beam of their former fire; and the retreating powers of life seemed for a moment to rush through his exhausted veins with all their pristine vigour. With a deep and hollow voice he said: “I find I have been deceived, and my child, I fear, is to become the victim of this deception. Speak, mysterious strangers, who have taught me at once to _love_ and to _fear_ you--what, and who are you? and to what purpose have you mutually, but apparently unknown to each other, stolen on our seclusion, and thus combined to embitter my last hours, by threatening the destruction of my child?”