ace?

Vainly did his soul upbraid him and warn him not to trust the beacon--to
fly from its alluring light and cast aside its spell. All deaf to the
warning, he eagerly followed the star which promised renewal of hope and
love and relief from the Solitude and the Silence--the desolation that
the kiss had made so real and intolerable.

But alas, as he wandered on and on, his eyes upon the star, his feet
following blindly, without marking the path into which they had turned,
his progress was suddenly checked. Through the misty twilight of the
approaching dawn there loomed an obstacle to his steps. It was with
horror unspeakable that he recognized the vault in which lay, in her
last sleep, his loved Virginia....

"Then his heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere,--
As the leaves that were withering and sere!"

The Star of Love was fading in the eastern sky and through the ghostly
dawn he turned and fled aghast to the cottage among the cherry trees.

* * * * *

Mother Clemm who had lain waiting and watching for him all night arose
from her uneasy couch when she heard the latch of the gate lifted, and
opened the door. He came in and walked past her like a wraith. His eyes
were wild, his face was bloodless and haggard, his hair damp and
disordered. The Mother's eyes were filled with dumb pain. He suffered
her to take his hand in hers and to gaze into his eyes with pity and
even raised the hand that held his own to his lips, as though to
reassure her; but he spake no word--made no attempt at explanation--and
she asked no questions.

For a moment he remained beside her, then straight to his desk he walked
and began arranging writing materials before him, while she disappeared
into the kitchen and started a blaze under a pot of coffee that stood
upon the little stove.

He wrote rapidly--furiously--without pausing for thought or for the
fastidious choice of words that was apt to make him halt frequently in
the act of composition, and the words that he wrote were the wild
words--wild, but beautiful and moving as an echo from Israfel's own
lute--of the poem, "Ulalume:"

"The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere,--
The leaves they were withering and sere,--
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year."

* * * * *

After that eventful n