er.
The lips did not even attempt to form words. Had Unorna been less
carried away by the excitement in her own thoughts, or less absorbed in
the fierce concentration of her will upon its passive subject, she would
have noticed the silence and would have gone back again over the old
ground. As it was, she did not pause.

"You understand therefore, my Mind, that this Beatrice was entirely the
creature of the man's imagination. Beatrice does not exist, because she
never existed. Beatrice never had any real being. Do you understand?"

This time she waited for an answer, but none came.

"There never was any Beatrice," she repeated firmly, laying her hand
upon the unconscious head and bending down to gaze into the sightless
eyes.

The answer did not come, but a shiver like that of an ague shook the
long, graceful limbs.

"You are my Mind," she said fiercely. "Obey me! There never was any
Beatrice, there is no Beatrice now, and there never can be."

The noble brow contracted in a look of agonising pain, and the
whole frame shook like an aspen leaf in the wind. The mouth moved
spasmodically.

"Obey me! Say it!" cried Unorna with passionate energy.

The lips twisted themselves, and the face was as gray as the gray snow.

"There is--no--Beatrice." The words came out slowly, and yet not
distinctly, as though wrung from the heart by torture.

Unorna smiled at last, but the smile had not faded from her lips when
the air was rent by a terrible cry.

"By the Eternal God of Heaven!" cried the ringing voice. "It is a
lie!--a lie!--a lie!"

She who had never feared anything earthly or unearthly shrank back. She
felt her heavy hair rising bodily upon her head.

The Wanderer had sprung to his feet. The magnitude and horror of the
falsehood spoken had stabbed the slumbering soul to sudden and terrible
wakefulness. The outline of his tall figure was distinct against the
gray background of ice and snow. He was standing at his full height, his
arms stretched up to heaven, his face luminously pale, his deep eyes
on fire and fixed upon her face, forcing back her dominating will upon
itself. But he was not alone!

"Beatrice!" he cried in long-drawn agony.

Between him and Unorna something passed by, something dark and soft and
noiseless, that took shape slowly--a woman in black, a veil thrown back
from her forehead, her white face turned towards the Wanderer, her white
hands hanging by her side. She stood still, and the face t