* * * *

Horrible and still more horrible grows the vision. The lamp is still
burning in bluish flame, sending a mystic light through the vaulted
archway of the chapel beyond the state bed. 0 God! a white figure kneels
and groans upon the steps of the altar, then, drawing back, approaches
his chair; her bands are meekly crossed upon her breast; like the marble
drapery of a statue, her robe falls in countless snowy folds, none of
which are broken in the onward-gliding motion of the shrouded form. O
God! he knows that lovely face, he has loved it well; it is the sweet
countenance of his young wife: the lips open, but the voice is not as of
old, tender and confiding; it is reproachful--commanding. He tries to
answer, but cannot force a word through his eager lips; he cannot
stretch forth his hand to greet her, but feels himself forced to follow
her wheresoever she may choose to lead him. Down, down through the dark
and narrow vaults of the castle, through the sepulchre where she was
buried, passing by her own coffin without stopping, up through the old
armory, through coats of mail, helmets, and swords, on--on--she reaches
the western tower--passes through the treasury--ascends the
staircase--bolts draw, and locked doors, like silent lips, open
noiselessly before. She beckons the old man on--on, to the arched door,
up to the loophole in the wall looking into the bridal chamber of the
ladies of the castle--there the dead form stops, and beckons him to draw
near and look within.

* * * * *

O God! close by the wedding bed and before the great mirror, he sees his
daughter in the arms of an armed man; he knows the flashing eye and
broad brow of the exile; he hears her familiar voice, sweet, sonorous,
and penetrating as the tones of the harmonica. A glittering blade is in
the hand of the man; his daughter speaks in clear, full tones:

'Strike! strike boldly! it is not thou who dealest the blow--my father
has already killed me!' She rises to meet the stroke of the keen steel
of the chieftain, as if she welcomed a deliverer. The old man tries to
tear asunder the loophole with his hands, but the cold granite does not
move--then it seems to him he falls upon his knees, and shouts to his
kinsman:

'Stop thy rash hand! I will give her to thee as wife. I will fight with
thee the King of the South; do not kill her, my good daughter, my only
child!'

They hear him not; a darkish l