Walter would have spoken, and have sought to prevail on this powerful being by fresh entreaties, but the latter prevented him, saying: “Peace! bethink thee well! and return hither to me to-morrow at midnight. Yet once more do I warn thee, ‘wake not the dead.’”
Having uttered these words, the mysterious being disappeared. Intoxicated with fresh hope, Walter found no sleep on his couch; for fancy, prodigal of her richest stores, expanded before him the glittering web of futurity; and his eye, moistened with the dew of rapture, glanced from one vision of happiness to another. During the next day he wandered through the woods, lest wonted objects by recalling the memory of later and less happier times, might disturb the blissful idea, that he should again behold her—again fold her in his arms, gaze on her beaming brow by day, repose on her bosom at night: and, as this sole idea filled his imagination, how was it possible that the least doubt should arise; or that the warning of the mysterious old man should recur to his thoughts.
No sooner did the midnight hour approach,
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