n that case I
must not alarm them. The Marquis took the taper, which lighted his
chamber, and placed it in a back room, which opened on the interior
corridor of the house. Carefully opening the terrace window, he took
refuge behind a group of trees, exactly opposite his room. The clock of
Sorrento struck three--the night was clear and brilliant, and the sky
was strewn with diamond stars--the air was soft and warm. It was a night
for love and lovers.

To Maulear it was a night of agony and torture. All around was so calm
and tranquil that the slightest noise fell on his ear,--he soon heard a
door open. Maulear fixed his eyes on the point of the terrace from which
the sound proceeded--his whole existence seemed concentrated in the
single sense of sight. Something cloudlike, vapory and undefinable,
which seemed too ethereal for earth, gradually appeared at the extreme
end of the terrace. This mysterious figure seemed to glide, rather than
walk, towards the place where Maulear was concealed; it approached him
slowly, without motion or sound to betray its steps. Wrapped in long
white drapery, like a mantle of vapor, resembling those creations of
Ossian which formed often the clouds of evening; in short, one might
have believed that she had risen from the earth, and had come to
dissolve under the first rays of the sun, or of the moon. The phantom
disappeared for a few seconds, amidst a dark grove, which projected on
the terrace the lofty trunks of large forest trees--but when she emerged
from their shade, and re-entered that portion of the terrace light and
brilliant, she approached so near to Maulear, that he was enabled to
examine and recognize her.

This graceful and vapory phantom was Aminta. Maulear expected it, but he
felt not the less a distressing grief, in thus recognizing her. It
seemed to him that the last plank of the wreck had broken under his
feet, and that he had fallen into the depth of despair. But soon anger
smothered the last cry of a love now no longer felt--and Maulear rushed
in pursuit of Aminta, when he saw her, to his great surprise, stop
before the window of his apartment. Then reaching out her hand she
pushed open the door and entered the room, which was partially lighted
by the moon.

"What is she doing," said Maulear, with amazement, "what business has
she in this room?"

An idea struck him. My presentiment did not deceive me. The first time
she appeared on this terrace, she was coming to this