carried her whole soul away. Certainly at that hour she felt no
regret--no thought but that one in whom she had so long recognized
something nobler than is found in the common world was thus happy and
thus made happy by a word, a look from her! Such a thought is woman's
dearest triumph; and one so thoroughly unselfish, so yielding, and so
soft, could not be insensible to the rapture she had caused.

"And oh!" said Maltravers, as he clasped again and again the hand that he
believed he had won forever, "now, at length, have I learned how
beautiful is life! For this--for this I have been reserved! Heaven is
merciful to me, and the waking world is brighter than all my dreams!"

He ceased abruptly. At that instant they were once more on the terrace
where he had first joined Teresa, facing the wood, which was divided by a
slight and low palisade from the spot where they stood. He ceased
abruptly, for his eyes encountered a terrible and ominous apparition,--a
form connected with dreary associations of fate and woe. The figure had
raised itself upon a pile of firewood on the other side of the fence, and
hence it seemed almost gigantic in its stature. It gazed upon the pair
with eyes that burned with a preternatural blaze, and a voice which
Maltravers too well remembered shrieked out "Love! love! What! _thou_
love again? Where is the Dead! Ha, ha! Where is the Dead?"

Evelyn, startled by the words, looked up, and clung in speechless terror
to Maltravers. He remained rooted to the spot.

"Unhappy man," said he, at length, and soothingly, "how came you hither?
Fly not, you are with friends."

"Friends!" said the maniac, with a scornful laugh. "I know thee, Ernest