The coffin was lowered gently into the grave; it disappeared, and the attendants were on the point of covering it with the appointed marble, when Eugene uttered a loud shriek. "Oh! Not yet! Not yet!" he cried, while he started from the ground, and rushing forward, he arrested the arm of one of the friars, who held the monumental stone. His eyes were swollen with weeping, his gestures were wild as a maniac's, and his voice was the very accent of despair. -- "Oh! not yet!" he exclaimed. "He was the only being in the world that ever really loved me! The slightest drop of blood in his veins was dearer to me than those which warm my own heart! I cannot endure to part with him forever! Oh! not yet, father! good father, not yet!" The youth was now kneeling on the verge of the grave, and he bent down his head and bathed the friar's feet with his tears in all the humility of supplication. As yet Magdalena had borne her sorrow like a heroine; but the unexpected shriek of Eugene, the heart-piercing hopeless tone in which he pronounced the words of "forever!" was more than her fortitude could bear. She uttered a deep sigh, and sank insensible into the arms of her attendants; while Rudiger (whom the page's cry of agony had also roused from his gloomy meditations) sprang forward with a furious look, and plunged into the grave. With involuntary horror the friars started back, and then as if changed to stone by a Gorgon's head.