is come in which you may again see the Lilian
of old— mind to mind, soul to soul."

Faber's hand took mine, and led me into the
house.

"You do, then, fear that this interview will
be too much for her strength?" said I,
whisperingly.

"I cannot say; but she demands the interview,
and I dare not refuse it."

CHAPTER, LXXVIII.

I LEFT Faber on the stairs, and paused at the
door of Lilian's room. The door opened
suddenly, noiselessly, and her mother came out with
one hand before her face and the other locked in
Amy's, who was leading her as a child leads the
blind. Mrs. Ashleigh looked up, as I touched
her, with a vacant dreary stare. She was not weeping,
as was her womanly wont, in every pettier
grief, but Amy was. No word was exchanged
between us. I entered, and closed the door;
my eyes turned mechanically to the corner in
which was placed the small virgin bed, with its
curtains white as a shroud. Lilian was not
there. I looked round, and saw her half-reclined
on a couch near the window. She was dressed,
and with care. Was not that her bridal robe?

"Allen— Allen," she murmured. " Again,
again my Allen— again, again your Lilian!"
And, striving in vain to rise, she stretched out
her arms in the yearning of reunited love. And
as I knelt beside her, those arms closed round
me, for the first time, in the frank, chaste, holy
tenderness of a wife's embrace.

"Ah!" she said, in her low voice (her voice,
like Cordelia's, was ever low), " all has come
back to me all— that I owe to your protecting,
noble, trustful, guardian, love!"

" Hush! hush! the gratitude rests with me—
it is so sweet to love, to trust, to guard!— my
own, my beautiful, still my beautiful! Suffering
has not dimmed the light of those dear eyes to
me! Put your lips to my ear. Whisper but
these words: ' I love you, and for your sake I
wish to live!'"

"For your sake, I pray— with my whole
weak human heart— I pray to live. Listen.
Some day hereafter, if I am spared, under the
purple blossoms of yonder waving trees I shall
tell you all, as I see it now, all that darkened
or shone on me in my long dream, and before
the dream closed around me, like a night in
which cloud and star chase each other! Some
day hereafter, some quiet, sunlit, happy, happy
day. But now, all I would say is this:
Before that dreadful morning." Here she paused,
shuddered, and passionately burst forth, " Allen,
Allen! you did not believe that slanderous letter!
God bless you! God bless you! Great-hearted,
high-souled— God bless you, my darling! my
husband! And He will! Pray to him humbly
as I do, and He will bless you." She stooped
and kissed away my tears, then she resumed,
feebly, meekly, sorrowfully:

"Before that morning I was not worthy of
such a heart, such a love as yours. No, no; hear
me. Not that a thought of love for another ever
crossed me! Never, while conscious and
reasoning, was I untrue to you— even in fancy?
But I was a child— wayward as the child who
pines for what earth cannot give, and covets
the moon for a toy. Heaven had been so kind
to my lot on earth, and yet with my lot on
earth I was secretly discontented. When I felt
that you loved me, and my heart told me that I
loved again, I said to myself, 'Now the void
that my soul finds on earth will be filled.' I
longed for your coming, and yet when you went I
murmured, 'But is this the ideal of which I had
dreamed?' I asked for an impossible sympathy.
Sympathy with what? Nay, smile on me,
dearest!— sympathy with what? I could not
have said. Ah! Allen, then, then, I was not
worthy of you; Infant that I was, I asked you
to understand me. Now I know that I am
woman, and my task is to study you! Do I
make myself clear? do you forgive me? I was
not untrue to you; I was untrue to my own
duties in life. I believed, in my vain
conceit, that a mortal's dim vision of heaven
raised me above the earth, I did not perceive
the truth that earth is a part of the same
universe as heaven! Now, perhaps in the awful
affliction that darkened my reason, my soul
has been made more clear. As if to chastise,
but to teach me, my soul has been permitted to
indulge its own presumptuous desire; it has
wandered forth from the trammels of mortal
duties and destinies; it comes back, alarmed by
the dangers of its own rash and presumptuous
escape from the tasks which it should desire
upon earth to perform. Allen, Allen, I am less
unworthy of you now! Perhaps in my darkness
one rapid glimpse of the true world of
spirit has been vouchsafed to me. If so, how
unlike to the visions my childhood indulged as
divine! Now, while I know still more deeply
that there is a world for the angels, I know,
also, that the mortal must pass through probation
in the world of mortals. Oh, may I pass
through it with you;— grieving in your griefs,
rejoicing in your joys!"

Here language failed her. Again the dear
arms embraced me, and the dear face, eloquent
with love, hid itself on my human breast.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

THAT interview is over! Again I am banished
from Lilian's room; the agitation, the joy of
that meeting has overstrained her enfeebled
nerves. Convulsive tremblings of the whole
frame, accompanied with vehement sobs,
succeeded our brief interchange of sweet and bitter
thoughts. Faber, in tearing me from her side,
imperiously and sternly warned me that the sole
chance yet left of preserving her life was in
the merciful suspense of the emotions that
my presence excited. He and Amy resumed
their place in her chamber. Even her mother
shared my sentence of banishment. So Mrs.
Ashleigh and I sat facing each other in the
room below; over me a leaden stupor had
fallen, and I heard, as a voice from afar or in a
dream, the mother's murmured wailings: