of their respective
rooms, with big, gaping wounds in their chests and throats, lay his wife
and children; whilst cross-legged, on a chest in the kitchen, his dark
saturnine face suffused with glee, squatted Wilfred.

"Fiend!" shouted Hellen. "I understand it all now. I have been dealing
with the Spirits of the Harz Mountains. But be you the Devil himself
you shan't escape me," and snatching an axe from the wall, he aimed a
terrific blow at Wilfred's head.

The weapon passed right through the form of Wilfred, and Hellen, losing
his balance, fell heavily to the ground. At this moment Marguerite
entered.

"Fool!" she cried; "fool, to think any weapon can harm either Wilfred or
me. We are phantasms--phantasms beyond the power of either Heaven or
Hell. Come here!"

Impelled by a force he could not resist, Hellen obeyed--and as he gazed
into her eyes all his blind infatuation for her came back.

"We must part now," she said; "but only for a while--for remember, you
belong to me. Here is a token"--and she thrust into his hand a wisp of
her long, golden hair. "Sleep on it and dream of me. Do not look so sad.
I shall come for you without fail, and by this sign you shall know when
I am coming. When this mark begins to heal," she said, as, with the nail
on the forefinger of the right hand, she scratched his forehead, "get
ready!"

There was then a loud crash--the room and everything in it swam before
Hellen's eyes, the floor rose and fell, and sinking backwards he
remembered no more.

* * * * *

When he recovered he was lying in the centre of the haunted plot. There
was nothing to be seen around him except the trees--dark lofty pines
that, swaying to and fro in the chill night breeze, shook their sombre
heads at him. A great sigh of relief broke from him--his experiences of
course had only been a dream. He was trying to collect his thoughts,
when he discovered that he was holding something tightly clasped in one
of his hands. Unable to think what it could be, he rose, and held it in
the full light of the moon. He then saw that it was a tuft of white
fur--the fur of some animal. Much puzzled, he put it in his pocket, and
suddenly recollecting his friend, set out for the place where he had
left him. "I shall soon know," he said to himself, "whether I have been
asleep all this time--God grant it may be so!" His heart beat fearfully
as he pressed forward, and he shouted out "Schiller" several