one, and that's what I never shall, I'm afeard. Poor
Sir Piers! I'd mumble a prayer for him, if I durst."

"Leave me," said Lady Rookwood, impatiently.

And Agnes quitted the room.

"What if the dead can return?" thought Lady Rookwood. "All men doubt it,
yet all men believe it. _I_ would not believe it, were there not a
creeping horror that overmasters me, when I think of the state beyond
the grave--that intermediate state, for such it must be, when the body
lieth mouldering in the ground, and the soul survives, to wander,
unconfined, until the hour of doom. And doth the soul survive when
disenthralled? Is it dependent on the body? Does it perish with the
body? These are doubts I cannot resolve. But if I deemed there was no
future state, this hand should at once liberate me from my own
weaknesses--my fears--my life. There is but one path to acquire that
knowledge, which, once taken, can never be retraced. I am content to
live--while living, to be feared--it may be, hated; when dead, to be
contemned--yet still remembered. Ha! what sound was that? A stifled
scream! Agnes!--without there! She is full of fears. I am not free from
them myself, but I will shake them off. This will divert their channel,"
continued she, drawing from her bosom the marriage certificate. "This
will arouse the torpid current of my blood--'_Piers Rookwood to Susan
Bradley_.' And by whom was it solemnized? The name is Checkley--Richard
Checkley. Ha! I bethink me--a Papist priest--a recusant--who was for
some time an inmate of the hall. I have heard of this man--he was
afterwards imprisoned, but escaped--he is either dead or in a foreign
land. No witnesses--'tis well! Methinks Sir Piers Rookwood did well to
preserve this. It shall light his funeral pyre. Would he could now
behold me, as I consume it!"

She held the paper in the direction of the candle; but, ere it could
touch the flame, it dropped from her hand. As if her horrible wish had
been granted, before her stood the figure of her husband! Lady Rookwood
started not. No sign of trepidation or alarm, save the sudden stiffening
of her form, was betrayed. Her bosom ceased to palpitate--her
respiration stopped--her eyes were fixed upon the apparition.

The figure appeared to regard her sternly. It was at some little
distance, within the shade cast by the lofty bedstead. Still she could
distinctly discern it. There was no ocular deception; it was attired in
the costume Sir Piers was wont to wear