onder and compassion. Looking into
that face, so altered yet still so young, I could not sternly question
what had been the evil of that mystic life, which seemed now oozing away
through the last sands in the hour-glass. I placed my hand softly on his
pulse: it scarcely beat. I put my ear to his breast, and involuntarily
sighed, as I distinguished in its fluttering heave that dull, dumb
sound, in which the heart seems knelling itself to the greedy grave!

Was this, indeed, the potent magician whom I had so feared!--this the
guide to the Rosicrucian's secret of life's renewal, in whom, but an
hour or two ago, my fancies gulled my credulous trust!

But suddenly, even while thus chiding my wild superstitions, a fear,
that to most would seem scarcely less superstitious, shot across me.
Could Lilian be affected by the near neighbourhood of one to whose
magnetic influence she had once been so strangely subjected? I left
Margrave still sleeping, closed and locked the door of the hut, went
back to my dwelling, and met Amy at the threshold. Her smile was so
cheering that I felt at once relieved.

"Hush!" said the child, putting her finger to her lips, "she is so
quiet! I was coming in search of you, with a message from her."

"From Lilian to me--what! to me!"

"Hush! About an hour ago, she beckoned me to draw near to her, and then
said, very softly: 'Tell Allen that light is coming back to me, and it
all settles on him--on him. Tell him that I pray to be spared to walk by
his side on earth, hand-in-hand to that heaven which is no dream, Amy.
Tell him that,--no dream!'"

While the child spoke my tears gushed, and the strong hands in which
I veiled my face quivered like the leaf of the aspen. And when I could
command my voice, I said plaintively,--

"May I not, then, see her?--only for a moment, and answer her message
though but by a look?"

"No, no!"

"No! Where is Faber?"

"Gone into the forest, in search of some herbs, but he gave me this note
for you."

I wiped the blinding tears from my eyes, and read these lines:--

"I have, though with hesitation, permitted Amy to tell you the cheering
words, by which our beloved patient confirms my belief that reason
is coming back to her,--slowly, labouringly, but if she survive, for
permanent restoration. On no account attempt to precipitate or disturb
the work of nature. As dangerous as a sudden glare of light to eyes long
blind and newly regaining vision in the friendly