in vain! It remains only that I free myself
from this Shadow, and leave you to the mercy of a Power with whom no
such Presence can cope,--in whom no darkness nor shadow may abide."

She turned to leave him with these words, but cast back a look of such
love and tender pity, that she seemed to Roger the very Spirit that had
borne Sunny away.

Bewildered and pained to the heart, he groped his way homeward, and
night lapsed into morning, and returned and went again more than once,
ere sleep returned to his eyes.

Violet kept no vigils; she wept herself asleep as a child against its
mother's bosom, and loving eyes guarded that childlike rest. But Roger's
waking was haunted with remorse and fearful expectation; and as days
crept by, and Memory, like one who fastens the galley-slave to his oar,
still pressed on his thoughts the constant patience, toil, and affection
of Violet Channing, he felt how truly she had spoken of him, and from
his soul abhorred the Shadow of his life.

Here he vanishes. Whether with successful conflict he fought with the
evil and prevailed, and showed himself a man,--or whether the Thing
renewed its dominion, and he drew to himself another nature, not for the
good power of its pure contact, but for the further increase of that
darkness, and the blinding of another soul, is never yet to be known.

Of Violet Channing he saw no more; with her his sole earthly redemption
had fled; she went her way, free henceforward from the Shadow, and
guarded in the arms of the shining Spirit.

The wind yet howls and dashes without; the rain, rushing in gusts on
roof and casement, keeps no time nor tune; the fire is dead in the
ashes; the red rose, in the lessening light, turns gray;--but far away
to the south the cloud begins to scatter; faint amber steals along the
crest of the distant hills; after all evils, hope remains,--even for a
Man with two Shadows. Let us, perhaps his kindred after the spirit, not
despair.

AMOURS DE VOYAGE.

[Concluded.]

IV.

Eastward, or Northward, or West? I wander, and ask as I wander,
Weary, yet eager and sure, where shall I come to my love?
Whitherward hasten to seek her? Ye daughters of Italy, tell me,
Graceful and tender and dark, is she consorting with you?
Thou that out-climbest the torrent, that tendest thy goats to the summit,
Call to me, child of the Alp, has she been seen on the heights?
Italy, farewell I bid thee! for, whither s