f his "Bridal Ballad"--more prophetic still:

"Would to God I could awaken!
For I dream I know not how;
And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken,--
Lest the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now."

And that merciless other self, his accusing Conscience, arose, and with
whisper louder and more terrible than ever before, upbraided
him--reminding him of the vow he had made his wife upon her bed of
death.

Alas, the vow!--that solemn, sacred vow! How could he have so utterly
forgotten it? How plainly he could see her lying upon the snowy
pillow--her face not much less white--her trustful eyes on his eyes as
he knelt by her side and swore that he would never bind himself in
marriage to another--invoking from Heaven a terrible curse upon his soul
if he should ever prove traitorous to his oath.

Alas, where had been his will that he had so soon forgotten his vow? How
he despised himself for his weakness--he that had boasted in the words
of old Joseph Glanvil, until he had almost made them his own words:

"'Man doth not yield himself to the angels nor unto death utterly, save
only through the weakness of his will.'"

* * * * *

Hours on hours he wandered the streets of the city whose every paving
stone seemed to speak to him of his Virginia--the city where he had
walked with her--where he had first spoken of love to her and heard her
sweet confession--where, in the holy church, the beautiful words of the
old, old rite had made them one.

All day he wandered, and all night--driven, cruelly driven--by the
upbraiding whisper in his ear, while before him still he saw her white
face with the soft eyes looking out--it seemed to him in reproach.

Finally the longing which had come upon him in Providence--the longing
for the peace of the grave and reunion, in death, with Virginia, was
strong upon him again--pressed him hard--mastered him.

It was sometime in the early morning that he swallowed the draught--the
draught that would free his spirit, that would enable him to lay down
the burden of his body and to fly from the steps that dogged _his_
steps--from the voice that whispered upbraidings. He would lay his body
down by the side of her body in the "legended tomb" while his spirit
would fly to join her spirit in that far Aidenn where they would be
happy together forever.

As he fell asleep he murmured (again quoting himself):

"And neit