room, like the black robes of dead sisters
of charity, who had returned to visit the
scene of their labours during life. Outside
the wind rose and fell in long measured
sighs; and a few raindrops, which came
down at intervals, pattered against the
window like fingers of shivering ghosts
who were there tapping for admission. A
strange sad fancy now seized Charles, a
fancy which, considering the natural cast
of the young poet's mind, the delirium
from which his brain had so lately
recovered, and his bodily weakness, might well
be accounted for. He assured himself that
Clara's spirit was about to visit him. Surely
before her death she must have longed and
yearned to bid him farewell; and what was
more probable than that her spirit clung to
earth till it had taken leave of him? This
idea soon got such complete possession of
his mind that he fixed his eyes upon the
door as if really expecting her, strained his
ear to catch some whisper near him, and laid
his hand outside the bed to feel the touch
of spirit wings. But he saw nothing
except the figure of Lazarus rising from
the grave, which, for the consolation of the
sick and dying, the pious founder of the
hospital had caused to be painted on the
wall. Lazarus in the dim light looked
gigantic, but was a familiar picture,
nothing more. Nothing was to be heard
except the noise of the window shaking in
its frame as if with fear, nothing was to be
felt except the touch of a large spider
which fell from the bed-curtain. This stillness
and emptiness of the room filled him
with a nervous suspense that, as it were,
enveloped and weighed down his mental
powers. A clock in the town struck the
quarter, and then began with its chimes to
play a tune, but suddenly stopped in the
middle, as though it were terrified at the
sound of its own voice in the silence of the
night. "Clara, Clara, where are you?" he
murmured in his great trouble of mind.

The words had hardly left his lips when
a low sigh sounded through the room. He
started. Did that sigh come through the
air from afar, or was it breathed close to
him? And now there appeared upon the
crimson fringe of the bed-curtain, which
was slowly drawn back, a little transparent
white hand. Then a faint cry burst from
Charles Temple, and a tremor ran through
his frame, for the apparition of his dead
wife stood beside him. It was arrayed in
shimmering white, and the form was so
light that it might have been wafted to him
on the midnight breeze. The face, in
place of the bright changeful complexion,
showed the ashy grey pallor of death, and
though the cheeks, which had been round
and dimpled, were hollow and sunk, the
face was the same face that he had loved
so well. There was no more sparkle of
life in the eyes which were turned upon
him with a fixed, mournful gaze, and lit with
a strange unearthly lustre. On the colourless
lips there rested a faint smile as of a
moonbeam falling on a field of snow. That
smile was the most ghastly thing in the
whole apparition. It was as though the
brilliant smiles that used to flash on him
the warm sunshine of mirth and love were
reflected by unnatural light in some
distorting mirror. For two or three minutes
Charles gazed at the phantom in silence.
A great awe, an unutterable sadness, was
upon him, a sadness not unmixed with a
vague melancholy pleasure at the proof
given, by this visit of her spirit to him after
death, of her undying love. At length he
spoke in a soft whisper, for he half feared
that the sound of his voice would break the
spell in which he lay. "My wife, my love,"
he said, "you are then come to take a last
leave of me, to tell me that I am still dear
to you."

"I was just now with the angels, but
they have let me come to you again," re-
plied a low voice that was like the voice of
the old Clara heard from afar. "You love
me still, Charles?"

"Love you, my heart's first and last
darling," he rejoined in tones dulled by the
strong pressure of his emotion.

"There are many spirits here who watch
you, although I have been away. The
room is full of them," said the same low,
sweet voice.

He shuddered, as well a mortal man
might shudder to hear one of the novices
of heaven tell what she saw with her new
faculties.

"Hark!" the voice went on, while a
transparent hand was raised, "the spirits
talk together. But there is a bright light
around me. The angel again takes my
hand. Let me kiss you once more upon
earth, my Charles."

Then the spectre bent down slowly
towards him; but at that moment a great
fear, overpowering his weakened faculties
of body and mind, came upon Charles
Temple, and he fainted.

Sœur Thérèse overslept herself that
morning, so that the sun was up before her,
and was throwing a chain of gold through
the half-drawn window curtains on the
floor of her patient's room as she entered
it. When she looked towards the bed she