ut the leaves of
writing which it contained, he noticed these lines traced inside the
cover:

"My one excuse for troubling you, when I might have consulted my
brother-in-law, will be found in the pages which I inclose. To speak
plainly, you have been led to fear that I am not in my right senses. For
this very reason, I now appeal to you. Your dreadful doubt of me, sir,
is my doubt too. Read what I have written about myself--and then tell
me, I entreat you, which I am: A person who has been the object of a
supernatural revelation? or an unfortunate creature who is only fit for
imprisonment in a mad-house?"

Mr. Rayburn opened the manuscript. With steady attention, which soon
quickened to breathless interest, he read what follows:

VI.

THE LADY'S MANUSCRIPT.

YESTERDAY morning the sun shone in a clear blue sky--after a succession
of cloudy days, counting from the first of the month.

The radiant light had its animating effect on my poor spirits. I had
passed the night more peacefully than usual; undisturbed by the dream,
so cruelly familiar to me, that my lost husband is still living--the
dream from which I always wake in tears. Never, since the dark days of
my sorrow, have I been so little troubled by the self-tormenting fancies
and fears which beset miserable women, as when I left the house, and
turned my steps toward Kensington Gardens--for the first time since my
husband's death.

Attended by my only companion, the little dog who had been his favorite
as well as mine, I went to the quiet corner of the Gardens which is
nearest to Kensington.

On that soft grass, under the shade of those grand trees, we had
loitered together in the days of our betrothal. It was his favorite
walk; and he had taken me to see it in the early days of our
acquaintance. There, he had first asked me to be his wife. There, we had
felt the rapture of our first kiss. It was surely natural that I should
wish to see once more a place sacred to such memories as these? I am
only twenty-three years old; I have no child to comfort me, no
companion of my own age, nothing to love but the dumb creature who is so
faithfully fond of me.

I went to the tree under which we stood, when my dear one's eyes told
his love before he could utter it in words. The sun of that vanished day
shone on me again; it was the same noontide hour; the same solitude
was around me. I had feared the first effect of the dreadful contrast
between past and prese