ou don't improve in looks
since--"

"Hush--hush! no more of that; can we not meet without a dreadful
allusion to the past! There needs nothing to remind me of it; and your
presence here now shows that you are not forgetful. Speak not of that
fearful episode. Let no words combine to place it in a tangible shape to
human understanding. I cannot, dare not, hear you speak of that."

"It is well," said the stranger; "as you please. Let our interview be
brief. You know my errand?"

"I do. So fearful a drag upon limited means, is not likely to be readily
forgotten."

"Oh, you are too ingenious--too full of well laid schemes, and to apt
and ready in their execution, to feel, as any fearful drag, the
conditions of our bargain. Why do you look at me so earnestly?"

"Because," said Varney--and he trembled as he spoke--"because each
lineament of your countenance brings me back to the recollection of the
only scene in life that made me shudder, and which I cannot think of,
even with the indifference of contempt. I see it all before my mind's
eye, coming in frightful panoramic array, those incidents, which even to
dream of, are sufficient to drive the soul to madness; the dread of this
annual visit, hangs upon me like a dark cloud upon my very heart; it
sits like some foul incubus, destroying its vitality and dragging me,
from day to day, nearer to that tomb, from whence not as before, I can
emerge."

"You have been among the dead?" said the stranger.

"I have."

"And yet are mortal."

"Yes," repeated Varney, "yes, and yet am mortal."

"It was I that plucked you back to that world, which, to judge from your
appearance, has had since that eventful period but few charms for you.
By my faith you look like--"

"Like what I am," interrupted Varney.

"This is a subject that once a year gets frightfully renewed between us.
For weeks before your visit I am haunted by frightful recollections, and
it takes me many weeks after you are gone, before I can restore myself
to serenity. Look at me; am I not an altered man?"

"In faith you are," said the stranger "I have no wish to press upon you
painful recollections. And yet 'tis strange to me that upon such a man
as you, the event to which you allude should produce so terrible an
impression."

"I have passed through the agony of death," said Varney, "and have again
endured the torture--for it is such--of the re-union of the body and the
soul; not having endured so much, not the f