our stumbled alone along the familiar road over
which a few short months before he had often travelled light-heartedly
by the side of Katharine. As he pressed on, he noticed a man leave the
boat-house and climb slowly up the hill. Desirous of escaping the
notice of the stranger, who, he supposed, might be the factor or agent
of the plantation, he waited in the shadow of the trees until the man
disappeared over the brow of the hill, and then he staggered on. A
short time after, he stood on the landward end of the little pier, and
then his heart stood still for a second, and then leaped madly in his
breast, as he seemed to hear a subtle voice, like an echo of the past,
which whispered his name, "Seymour! Seymour!" Stepping toward the
middle of the pier so that he could see the interior of the boat-house
through the inner door, his eyes fell upon the figure of a woman
standing in the other doorway looking out over the water, stretching
out her hands. The sun had set by this time, and the gray dusk of the
evening was stealing over the river. He could not see distinctly, but
there was light enough to show him a familiar scarlet cloak at her
feet, and although her back was turned to him, he recognized the
graceful outlines of her slender figure. It was Katharine, or a dream!
But could the dead return again? Had the sea given up her dead indeed?

He could not believe the evidence of his bewildered senses. It might
be an hallucination, the baseless fabric of a vision, some image
conjured from the deep recesses of his loving heart by his enfeebled
disordered imagination, and yet he surely had heard a living voice,
"Seymour--John--Oh, my love!" Stifling the beating of his heart,
holding his breath even, stepping softly, lest he should affright the
airy vision, he staggered to the door and stood gazing; then he
whispered one word,--

"Katharine!"

It was only a whisper she heard, but it reached the very centre of her
being.

"Katharine," he said softly again, with so much passionate entreaty in
his wistful voice, that under its compelling influence she slowly
turned and looked toward the other door from whence the sound had come.
Then as she saw him, lifting one hand to her head while the other
unconsciously sought her heart, she shrank back against the wall, and
stared at him in voiceless terror. He dropped unsteadily to his knee,
as if to worship at a shrine.

"Oh, do not go away," he whispered. "I know it is