“There is a spell on me, by Heaven!” said Bois-Guilbert. “I almost think yon besotted skeleton spoke truth, and that the reluctance with which I part from thee hath something in it more than is natural.⁠—Fair creature!” he said, approaching near her, but with great respect⁠—“so young, so beautiful, so fearless of death! and yet doomed to die, and with infamy and agony. Who would not weep for thee?⁠—The tear, that has been a stranger to these eyelids for twenty years, moistens them as I gaze on thee. But it must be⁠—nothing may now save thy life. Thou and I are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which are dashed against each other, and so perish. Forgive me, then, and let us part, at least, as friends part. I have assailed thy resolution in vain, and mine own is fixed as the adamantine decrees of fate.”