in
and carried off the key of your salvation.

Do not give way yet; review your situation carefully.--Your voice
would be inaudible through these massive walls, were the listener but
a yard away.--Be quick with your thinking, for the unmitigable minutes
are dying fast and forever.--Were it known that you were here, could
you be got out? No, for the secret of the door is known only to
yourself. Those who once shared the knowledge with you are dead, or
many years gone! Your evil genius no doubt knows it, and all your
secrets; but dream not that she will liberate you. She has been
awaiting this opportunity. You shall remain here to-night and many
nights. Your bones shall lie gaunt on this cobwebbed floor. Only the
daily sunbeam shall know of your tomb. And Gnulemah?...

Your knees falter beneath you, and you sink in wretched tears to the
floor,--tears that bring no drop of comfort. To be shut up alone with
a soul like yours, at the moment when the sin so long tampered with
has escaped your control, and is pitilessly doing its devilish work
on the other side your prison-walls, near, yet inaccessible,--who can
measure the horror of it? Till now you have made your will the law of
right and wrong, and read your life by no higher light than your own.
You read it otherwise to-night, lying here helpless and alone. That
lost key has unlocked the fair front of your complacency and revealed
the wizened deformity behind it. You have been insane; but the anguish
that would craze a sane man clears the mist from your reason. You
behold the truth at last; but as the drowning man sees the ship pass
on and leave him.

But we care not to watch too curiously the writhings of your
imprisoned soul, Manetho; the less, because we doubt whether the agony
will be of benefit to you. Forgiveness of enemies is perhaps beyond
your scope; even your rage to save Gnulemah was kindled chiefly by
your impotence to do so. God forbid we do you less than justice! but
hope seems dim for such as you; nor will a death-bed repentance,
however sincere, avail to wipe away the sins of a lifetime. Jealousy
of Balder, rather than desire for Gnulemah's eternal weal, awoke your
conscience. For the thought of their spending life in happy ignorance
of their true relationship inflames--does not allay--your agony!

Your womanish outburst of despairing tears over, a hot fever of
restlessness besets you. The space is narrow for disquiet such as
yours,--you hunt up and d