elihood been mistaken after all. Reason reminded him that
the church had been dark, the multitude of worshippers closely
crowded together, the voices that sang almost innumerable and wholly
undistinguishable from each other. Reason showed him a throng of
possibilities, all pointing to an error of his perceptions and all in
direct contradiction with the one fact which his loving instinct held
for true.

The fear of evil, the presentiment of death, defied logic and put its
own construction and interpretation upon the strange event. He neither
believed, nor desired to believe, in a supernatural visitation, yet
the inexplicable certainty of having seen a ghostly vision overwhelmed
reason and all her arguments. Beatrice was dead. Her spirit had passed
in that solemn hour when the Wanderer had stood in the dusky church; he
had looked upon her shadowy wraith, and had heard the echo of a voice
from beyond the stars, whose crystal tones already swelled the diviner
harmony of an angelic strain.

The impression was so strong at first as to be but one step removed from
conviction. The shadow of a great mourning fell upon him, of a grief
too terrible for words, too solemn for tears, too strong to find any
expression save in death itself. He walked heavily, bending his head,
his eyes half closed as though in bodily pain, the icy pavement rang
like iron under his tread, the frozen air pierced through him, as his
sorrow pierced his heart, the gloom of the fast-sinking winter's day
deepened as the darkness in his own soul. He, who was always alone, knew
at last what loneliness could mean. While she had lived she had been
with him always, a living, breathing woman, visible to his inner eyes,
speaking to his inward hearing, waking in his sleepless love. He had
sought her with restless haste and untiring strength through the length
and breadth of the whole world, but yet she had never left him, he had
never been separated from her for one moment, never, in the years of his
wandering, had he entered the temple of his heart without finding her
in its most holy place. Men had told him that she was dead, but he had
looked within himself and had seen that she was still alive; the dread
of reading her sacred name carved upon the stone that covered her
resting-place, had chilled him and made his sight tremble, but he had
entered the shrine of his soul and had found her again, untouched by
death, unchanged by years, living, loved, and loving. But