ad saved another's soul, though I
was so weak in guarding my own. It might help me too, perhaps--if any
thing can help me--where I am going." Even Royston Keene shivered at the
low terror-stricken whisper in which these last words were spoken. He
gave the promise though, and remembered it occasionally till--the time
for keeping it came.

The major had been spending the evening with Cecil Tresilyan, making
arrangements for a pic-nic that was to take place two days later. He had
had a passage-of-arms or two with Mrs. Danvers, wherein that
strong-principled but weak-minded enthusiast had been utterly
discomfited and routed with great slaughter. Altogether it was very
pleasant entertainment; and he went to his rest in a state of great
contentment and satisfaction. He woke (or seemed to wake) with a sudden
start and shudder, for he was aware of the presence of something in the
room that was not there when he lay down.

Out of the black darkness a face slowly defined itself, bending over the
pillow and creeping close to his own--only a face--he could not
distinguish even the outline of a figure. He knew it very well, and the
eyes, too--but there was an upbraiding there that, while she lived, he
had never seen in those of gentle Emily Carlyle; and a reproach came
from the white lips, though they did not move to give it passage. "All
forgotten! I--the promise, too. And yet--I suffer--I suffer always." The
sad, pleading expression of the face and eyes vanished then; and a
strange, pale glare, not like the moonlight, that seemed to come from
within, lighted them up--fixed and rigid, yet eloquent, of unutterable
agony: there was written plainly the self-abhorrence of a heart
conscious of the coils of the undying worm--the despair of a soul
looking far into Futurity, yet seeing no end to the wrath to come. Then
the darkness swallowed up all; and, before Keene thoroughly roused
himself--with a smothered cry--he knew that he was alone again.

A cold dew lingered on the dreamer's forehead, as if a breath from
beyond the grave had lately passed over it; but terror was not the
predominating feeling. He had ruled that timid, trusting girl too long
and too imperiously to quail before her disembodied spirit. But a
strange sadness overcame him as he pondered upon all that she had
endured--and might still be enduring--for his sake: a glimmer of
something like generosity and compassion flickered for a brief space
over the surface of the ca