the address of the letter which lay uppermost. The ink, though faded,
was legible enough--"Lady Sionèd-ap-Penrhyn, Constantinople." He
opened the letter and glanced at the signature. The note was signed
with the initials of his grandfather, Lionel Dartmouth. They were
peculiarly formed, and were in many of the library books.

He turned back to the first page. As he did so he was aware of a
new sensation, which seemed, however, but a natural evolution in his
present mental and spiritual exaltation. It was as if the page were a
blank sheet and he were wielding an invisible pen. Although, before
he took up the letter, he had had no idea of its contents beyond
a formless, general intuition, as soon as he began to read he was
clearly aware of every coming word and sentence and sentiment in it.
So strong was the impression, that once he involuntarily dropped the
note and, picking up a pen, began hastily writing what he knew was on
the unread page. But his mind became foggy at once, and he threw down
the pen and returned to the letter. Then the sense of authorship and
familiarity returned. He read the letters in the order in which they
came, which was the order of their writing. Among them were some pages
of exquisite verse: and verses and letters alike were the words of a
man to a woman whom he loved with all the concentration and intensity
of a solitary, turbulent, passionate nature; who knew that in this
love lay his and her only happiness; and who would cast aside the
orthodoxy of the world as beneath consideration when balanced against
the perfecting of two human lives. They reflected the melancholy,
ill-regulated nature of the man, but they rang with a tenderness and
a passion which were as unmistakable as the genius of the writer; and
Harold knew that if the dead poet had never loved another woman he
had loved Sionèd Penrhyn. Or had he loved her himself? Or was it Weir?
Surely these letters were his. He had written them to that beautiful