was a ghastly image enough without the
trembling light, by which the corpse
appeared to be swaying to and fro.

It was warm; she would leave the window
open all night; the moon was friendly;
she could hear the wind stirring the
topmost boughs of the forest yonder, where
Albrecht was; and that was something.
She had double-locked the door, and now
she slid off the narrow quaint garment
wherein she had been attired, and crept
into the great black bed, which looked to
her so like a grave, with its headstone and
its garland in memory of the departed.
The clock struck ten, as she lay down, and
turned her face towards the window. The
moon itself she could not see, though its
light streamed in upon the floor; but there
were spaces of clear sky, sprinkled with
stars, across which the dusky shadow of a
bat every now and then flitted. Except
the hoarse croaking of the frogs, there was
no other sign of life. For a long time she
lay awake . . . she heard eleven strike,
and then twelve . . . a prey to all manner
of fancies. Now she thought that Esther
stirred from her place upon the wall, and
that she heard the rustle of her royal robes;
now it was Ahasuerus who was stepping
from his throne, and advancing to meet
her; now Haman's dead limbs seemed to
become animated, and the miscreant was
descending from the gallows. But, one by
one, these fancies wore themselves out.
The woven figures came not to life; no
sound, not even that of a mouse behind the
wainscot, broke the perfect stillness of the
night. The imagination, without aliment,
cannot keep up for ever at high-pressure
pitch; and when youth and health are in
the other scale, nature will sooner or later
have its way, and claim its right of rest.
She fell asleep.

How long she remained so, she never
knew; but she started from her sleep with
the horrible consciousness that something
was near her—something between her and
the window—something bending over her,
with its face close, close to hers. She lay
there breathless, motionless. She tried to
scream, to spring from the bed; she could
not stir a muscle, and the thing stood there,
immovable, with its glittering eyes looking
down into hers. She knew she had been
dreaming; she asked herself, in those few
doubtful moments, whether this was a
continuation of her nightmare? For, paralysed
with terror as she was, strange to say, the
deadly face of this shadow brought vividly
to her mind the picture which had made
so deep an impression on her at Prague.
Though this was the face of a shadow,
white and hollow, there were the same
extraordinary eyes, unlike any Magda had
ever seen. The rest was shrouded in black,
and the moon from behind touched the
edges of one white lock of hair with silver.
"Louise!" murmured the shadow; and
Magda felt a death-cold hand laid upon
hers, outside the coverlet. She trembled
so that the very bed shook under her, but
she gave no other sign of life.

Lower and lower, closer and closer, bent
the shadow. And now, indeed, Magda
shut her eyes, and felt that life was ebbing
fast from her heart; for the corpse-like
face touched hers, and those dead lips
rained kisses on her cheek. Then, with a
great cry, as though something within her
had snapped, Magda felt a sudden momentary
power given her to spring from the
bed, and run shrieking towards the window.
It was but momentary; there was another
shriek, the piercing echo of her own; she
was conscious of the spectre's rushing
towards her, white hair flowing, wild arms
tossed into the sky; and then Magda sank
in a swoon upon the floor.

Bettine was bending over her with
sal-volatile, when she opened her eyes. Hanne
stood by the bed, whereon something black
lay stretched.

"Mein Gott! sie ist todt!" were the
first words Magda heard. They came from
the lips of the grim Hanne. The door
opened quickly at the same moment, and
Magda found herself in Albrecht's arms.

But the next minute he turned towards
the bed. Hanne and he interchanged
looks; it was enough; and then, leaving
Magda to Bettine's care, he ran towards
the bed, and threw himself on his knees
beside it. . . . Too late! too late! All
his hope, then—his heart's first wish for
years past—was now frustrated, at the
very moment of fulfilment! He buried his
head in the coverlid, and Magda heard a
low sob. There was no other sound in the
room. Then, after a while, she caught
these disjointed sentences, wrung from the
agony of the young man's soul:

"Du barmherziger Himmel! ... Is it
all over then? . . . After so many years, so
many!—without one kind look—without a
word! It is hard. To go thus from me
before the cloud was lifted . . . . Ach!
mutter—thou knowest now the truth—-
open thy lips, but once more—only once,
to bless me, even me, thy only son, now