all that she has sacrificed for me--never can
imagine what I have felt for years and years past"--his voice trembled,
and the tears came into his eyes--"but I dare not trust myself to speak
of that; the thought of the old happy days in the Abbey almost breaks my
heart now. Let me get back to the other subject. I must tell you that
I kept the frightful vision which pursued me, at all times and in all
places, a secret from everybody, knowing the vile reports about my
having inherited madness from my family, and fearing that an unfair
advantage would be taken of any confession that I might make. Though
the phantom always stood opposite to me, and therefore always appeared
either before or by the side of any person to whom I spoke, I soon
schooled myself to hide from others that I was looking at it except
on rare occasions, when I have perhaps betrayed myself to you. But my
self-possession availed me nothing with Ada. The day of our marriage was
approaching."

He stopped and shuddered. I waited in silence till he had controlled
himself.

"Think," he went on, "think of what I must have suffered at looking
always on that hideous vision whenever I looked on my betrothed wife!
Think of my taking her hand, and seeming to take it through the figure
of the apparition! Think of the calm angel-face and the tortured
specter-face being always together whenever my eyes met hers! Think
of this, and you will not wonder that I betrayed my secret to her. She
eagerly entreated to know the worst--nay, more, she insisted on knowing
it. At her bidding I told all, and then left her free to break our
engagement. The thought of death was in my heart as I spoke the parting
words--death by my own act, if life still held out after our separation.
She suspected that thought; she knew it, and never left me till her good
influence had destroyed it forever. But for her I should not have been
alive now; but for her I should never have attempted the project which
has brought me here."

"Do you mean that it was at Miss Elmslie's suggestion that you came to
Naples?" I asked, in amazement.

"I mean that what she said suggested the design which has brought me to
Naples," he answered. "While I believed that the phantom had appeared
to me as the fatal messenger of death, there was no comfort--there was
misery, rather, in hearing her say that no power on earth should make
her desert me, and that she would live for me, and for me only, through
every trial. B