Lodore by Mary Shelley

Ma la fede degli Amanti È come l'Araba fenice; Che vi sia, ciaschun' lo dice. Ma dove sia, nessun lo sa. --Metastasio.

Meanwhile Lady Lodore had been enduring the worst miseries of ill- fated love. The illness of Lady Santerre, preceding her death, had demanded all her time; and she nursed her with exemplary patience and kindness. During her midnight watchings and solitary days, she had full time to feel how deep a wound her heart had received. The figure and countenance of her absent friend haunted her in spite of every effort; and when death hovered over the pillow of her mother, she clung, with mad desperation, to the thought, that there was still one, when this parent should be gone, to love her, even though she never saw him more.