the silent communities of the dead. There, before the uncouth monument
of dark red marble beneath which Tycho Brahe rests in peace, there she
stood; not as he had seen her last on that day when his senses had left
him in the delirium of his sickness, not in the freshness of her bloom
and of her dark loveliness, but changed as he had dreamed in evil dreams
that death would have power to change her. The warm olive of her cheek
was turned to the hue of wax, the soft shadows beneath her velvet eyes
were deepened and hardened, her expression, once yielding and changing
under the breath of thought and feeling as a field of flowers when
the west wind blows, was now set, as though for ever, in a death-like
fixity. The delicate features were drawn and pinched, the nostrils
contracted, the colourless lips straightened out of the lines of beauty
into the mould of a lifeless mask. It was the face of a dead woman, but
it was her face still, and the Wanderer knew it well; in the kingdom
of his soul the whole resistless commonwealth of the emotions revolted
together to dethrone death's regent--sorrow, while the thrice-tempered
springs of passion, bent but not broken, stirred suddenly in the palace
of his body and shook the strong foundations of his being.

During the seconds that followed, his eyes were riveted upon the beloved
head. Then, as the Creed ended, the vision sank down and was lost to his
sight. She was seated now, and the broad sea of humanity hid her from
him, though he raised himself the full height of his stature in the
effort to distinguish even the least part of her head-dress. To move
from his place was all but impossible, though the fierce longing to be
near her bade him trample even upon the shoulders of the throng to reach
her, as men have done more than once to save themselves from death by
fire in crowded places. Still the singing of the hymn continued, and
would continue, as he knew, until the moment of the Elevation. He
strained his hearing to catch the sounds that came from the quarter