but a princess in the disguise of a savage, darted past him. So sudden
was the appearance, and so swift the flight of this dusky Diana,
speeding through the blossoming shrubs of spring, that his mind
retained only a general impression of a face, perfect-featured and
olive-tinted, and a form robed in a brilliant and barbarous admixture
of scarlet, yellow, and very dark blue.

But the next moment every sensation and emotion gave way to
overwhelming and profound grief, for his sister Rose, hurrying to meet
him, threw herself into his arms with an abandon of sorrow that seemed
to leave no room for hope. The fatal question burned a moment on his
lips, then died away unuttered, leaving them pale as ashes, and a big
tear fell upon the bright head of the girl whom he now believed to be
with himself motherless. But in a moment his father took his hand in a
tense, strong grasp, and drew him quickly forward. "She yet breathes,"
he whispered, "but is unable to recognize any of us. Heaven grant she
may know you. For days past her moan has been, 'I cannot die until I
see my son, until I see my first-born.'"

His voice broke as they entered the chamber of death. The young man,
feeling strangely weak and blind, sat down beside the bed, for the
awful hush of this darkened room weighed heavily upon him. As in a
terrible dream he saw the sorrowing forms of his younger brother and
sister, crouching at his feet, poor Rose drooping in the doorway, his
father's trembling hands grasping a post of the high, old-fashioned
bedstead, and, on the other side of the bed a youthful stranger, whose
black dress and very black hair divinely framed a face and throat of
milky whiteness. These objects left but a weak impression upon his
dulled senses, for all his soul was going out in resistless longing
towards the fast-ebbing life that seemed to be slipping away from his