I knew what he referred to, and suspected
that the blind man had betrayed us; but I
made no answer, for Amy's sake, although I
was grieved to hear him talk like this, for he
had often treated me kindly. Moreover,
I could not help pitying him, for I felt that
his strange fancies had moved him deeply.
His words were bitter, but his voice broke
sometimes, as if he felt acutely the injustice
which he thought he suffered. He turned
away as soon as he had finished, and departed,
scarcely leaving me time to reply. His threat
alarmed me; but I had faith in Amy. She
came to me in the library that afternoon, as I
was about to leave. She seemed agitated.

"I fear my uncle has been speaking to you
harshly," said she. " I came to shake hands
with you before you go, and to bid you not to
let it grieve you."

"No, no, Amy," I answered; " I will bear
anything while you remain unchanged."

"Promise me, then," she said, " whatever
may happen, that you will not judge me
harshly. For myself, I shall not change; but
if you should grow weary of waiting, I will
forgive you and will not complain."

"Never, never, Amy! " I held her hand
in mine a moment, and then released it, and
she glided down the library.

Her manner had alarmed me. I could not
rest that night, but lay awake, foreboding
many evils; yet I never touched the truth,
although some trouble, in the distance, seemed
to threaten me. I rose early next morning,
and hastened to the College. There was no
one in the quadrangle; and looking towards
the Warden's house, I saw the shutters closed,
and the blind still down at Amy's window.
I walked over, and listened, but heard no
noise within; knocking at the door, I waited
and listened again: but the silence of death
seemed in the house. A terrible thought
struck me, as I stood there, striving to catch
some sound, with an intense attention. The
wildness of the old man's manner overnight
seemed to me a symptom of that sudden
madness, under the influence of which,
sometimes, the gentlest natures have done deeds
of violence to those whom they have loved the
most.

I did not seek for any one to aid me, but
turned and went along the passage, and through
the library, to get that way into the Warden's
house. The door was not locked. I went
through. I stood a moment, and listened
again. I could have heard the slightest breathing,
if any one had been sleeping in the house.
I heard nothing. I mounted the stairs, and
knocked at Amy's door, and pushed it open.
I saw she had not slept there, the previous
night; there was no article of clothing about
the walls, nor any of her trinkets on the
table. I went to the old man's room next,
and afterwards to the housekeeper's, and found
both empty. Down stairs I found no one.
Everything belonging to the inmates seemed
to be removed, and nothing left there but
the furniture: which was the property of the
College. A ray of sunlight, full of dusky
specks, fell through the hole in the shutters
of the back-room, and I sat some time upon
a chair there, sick at heart, and utterly
bewildered.

They were gone, and none knew whither.
No one in the College had heard them go, nor
could I find about the city any one who had
helped them to remove what they had taken
with them. I wandered in the streets that
day, and about the market-place that night,
vaguely hoping to meet some trace of them;
and so, from day to day. Afterwards, I
haunted the College continually: lingering
there, sometimes, till late at night. Certain
Trustees visited the place, and told me
that the old man had sent in his accounts on
the day on which he left, stating that he was
compelled to leave the city that night. His
letter had shown them that he wrote under
some excitement, and he had not stated
whither he was going. They requested me
to take his duties on myself, until another
Warden could be appointed. Afterwards,
some clergymen in the city who had frequented
the library, spoke to them favourably of me,
and, in the end, I was appointed Warden in
the old man's stead.

My mother came to live with me in the
house which he had occupied. I did not
doubt, at first, that I should one day hear of
Amy again; and that her coming to bid me
farewell, on the night on which she had left,
and what she had said then, was intended to
assure me of this; but a whole year passed, and
spring came, and summer came, and I had no
news of her. The hope of seeing her grew
faint within me. I even reproached her,
sometimes, in my mind. I fell again into my
old way. The change had not been long
enough to turn aside the bias of my past life
altogether. The place was so little changed,
and my daily life was so like what it had so
long been, that, gradually, the time when
Amy lived there seemed to me only like a
tale that I had been reading. Sometimes, on
awakening from some long train of meditation,
I recollected that I had not thought of Amy
for some days; and wondered at it, knowing
how deeply I had loved her—knowing how
deeply I loved her still.

I had begun a work upon the antiquities of
the city—a wearisome task in the beginning,
but when my researches were completed, and
my work began to grow into shape, I laboured
upon it with ardour. It was upon this that
I was engaged, one afternoon. My mother
had been sitting with me in the library. She
had gone out, and I had sat there alone, I know
not how long, wholly absorbed in my task.
That moment is stronger in my memory than
any other of my life. I remember waiting for
sometime, with a half consciousness of some
movement near the door that led into the
passage. I did not raise my eyes; but after a
time, the belief that there was some one there,