can witness that I felt all my old love for him return then, but he
was delirious, and never recognized me. And, Nathalie, his hair,--it
had been coal-black, and he wore it very long,--he wouldn't let them
cut it either; and as they knew no skill could save him, they let him
have his way,--his hair was then as white as snow! God alone knows what
that brain must have suffered to blanch hair which had been as black
as the wing of a raven!"

He covered his eyes with his hand, and sat silently. The fingers of
the phantom still shone dimly on his head, and its white locks drooped
above him, like a weft of light.

"What was his name, father?" asked the pitying girl.

"George Feval. The very name sounds like fever. He died on Christmas
eve, fifteen years ago this night. It was on his death-bed, while his
mind was tossing on a sea of delirious fancies, that he wrote me this
long letter,--for to the last, I was uppermost in his thoughts. It is
a wild, incoherent thing, of course,--a strange mixture of sense and
madness. But I have kept it as a memorial of him. I have not looked
at it for years; but this morning I found it among my papers, and
somehow it has been in my mind all day."

He slowly unfolded the faded sheets, and sadly gazed at the writing.
His daughter had risen from her half-recumbent posture, and now bent
her graceful head over the leaves. The phantom covered its face with
its hands.

"What a beautiful manuscript it is, father!" she exclaimed. "The
writing is faultless."