rose to her feet. "Ah! he loves me not;
he loves me not even as I love him; and alas! I care more for his love
than even for the freedom I ask."

"I will not wait to be willing," cried Cosmo; and sprang to the corner
where the great sword stood.

Meantime it had grown very dark; only the embers cast a red glow through
the room. He seized the sword by the steel scabbard, and stood before
the mirror; but as he heaved a great blow at it with the heavy pommel,
the blade slipped half-way out of the scabbard, and the pommel struck
the wall above the mirror. At that moment, a terrible clap of thunder
seemed to burst in the very room beside them; and ere Cosmo could repeat
the blow, he fell senseless on the hearth. When he came to himself, he
found that the lady and the mirror had both disappeared. He was seized
with a brain fever, which kept him to his couch for weeks.

When he recovered his reason, he began to think what could have become
of the mirror. For the lady, he hoped she had found her way back as
she came; but as the mirror involved her fate with its own, he was more
immediately anxious about that. He could not think she had carried it
away. It was much too heavy, even if it had not been too firmly fixed in
the wall, for her to remove it. Then again, he remembered the thunder;
which made him believe that it was not the lightning, but some other
blow that had struck him down. He concluded that, either by supernatural
agency, he having exposed himself to the vengeance of the demons in
leaving the circle of safety, or in some other mode, the mirror had
probably found its way back to its former owner; and, horrible to think
of, might have been by this time once more disposed of, delivering up
the lady into the power of another man; who, if he used his power no
worse than he himself had done, might yet give Cosmo abundant cause to
curse the selfish indecision which prevented him from shattering the
mirror at once. Indeed, to think that she whom he loved, and who had
prayed to him for freedom, should be still at the mercy, in some degree,
of the possessor of the mirror, and was at least exposed to his constant
observation, was in itself enough to madden a chary lover.

Anxiety to be well retarded his recovery; but at length he was able to
creep abroad. He first made his way to the old broker's, pretending to
be in search of something else. A laughing sneer on the creature's face
convinced him that he knew all about it;