entered the chapel. Those who had seen him amid the
brilliant society of Naples, or amid the awful judicial ordeal to which
he had just been subjected, and which he had undergone with such
coolness and audacity, would not have recognized the humble and
trembling man, who knelt before a sarcophagus of black marble surmounted
with the coronet and arms of the Monte-Leoni. The Count knelt at the
tomb of his father--his father, who was his religion and his faith. He
would have thought himself unworthy of his protection had he not gone
immediately on his release to worship those consecrated relics.
Prostrate at the monument he prayed with fervor. All the recent events
of his life occurred to him. And in the kind of hallucination caused by
prolonged meditation, awake as he was, he entered the realm of dreams.
He seemed to see two genii seeking, the one to drag him towards heaven
and the other towards the abyss. The genii were two females. They
recalled the features of two charming and beautiful women, whom he
remembered. One had the gentle and pale expression of Aminta; the other,
the more masculine and stately air of La Felina. The one which led him
heavenward was Aminta. The sound of the organ, the mysterious light
which pervaded the chapel, the religious effect of the whole scene,
exaggerated the excitement of the Count, and contributed to add to his
nervousness. Two mild melancholy voices, like those of angels praying
for the guilty, mingled with the organ's notes, and Monte-Leone fancied
that he heard in the distance the voices of departed souls. The blood
of Monte-Leone became chilled, for at that moment he asked his father to
reveal to him the future, and guide him in his perilous path. The song
of the dead seemed to reply to him. The Count, like other energetic and
brave men, like Caesar and Napoleon, was very superstitious. We have seen
him brave death without trembling, though it came in the most terrible
form. He who had struggled against the waves of the sea, and confronted
the Grand Judge of Naples, grew pale when he heard the _de profundis_
chanted in an obscure church and by the side of a tomb. By a strange
fatality, nothing seemed wanting which could increase the sadness of
Monte-Leone. Just as he was about to leave the church the solitary light
was extinguished. The young man fancied this accident a declaration of
the will of God. Terror-stricken, he left the church, and did not regain
his consciousness until h