"I knew not of his death till I came to England; but now I,—but you will mock me—yet surely not here. I will tell you all. That night I saw Guido as distinctly as I see you—you, in this open daylight, and before blessed heaven. I was alone, when I saw his sad and reproachful eyes, his pale and beautiful countenance, grow as it were on the air. A strange horror came over me, and I fainted; but the recollection is as actual as any other circumstance of my existence. Shall I tell you the truth? The first awe passed away—I firmly believed that, by some inscrutable means, he had gained access, and deemed it best to preserve strict silence on the subject; but now I know it was no living form that passed before me!" And again Marie hid her face in her hands, while Francesca was too oppressed to speak: she remembered the terror that had been upon her previous to Guide's death.
"We will not talk of it," she whispered, in a faint voice; "there are mysteries on which it is not good to dwell. I feel deep within my inmost heart, that now his rest is dreamless and unbroken."
For a little while longer they sat in silence, when suddenly the Comtesse, whose burst of passionate agony had subsided into almost unconscious
