"And would Lilian Ashleigh have passively accompanied you, to her own irretrievable disgrace?" "She could not have helped it; she would have been unconscious of her acts; she was, and is, in a trance; nor, had she gone with me, would she have waked from that state while she lived; that would not have been long." "Wretch! and for what object of unhallowed curiosity do you exert an influence which withers away the life of its victim?" "Not curiosity, but the instinct of self-preservation. I count on no life beyond the grave. I would defy the grave, and live on." "And was it to learn, through some ghastly agencies, the secret of renewing existence, that you lured me by the shadow of your own image on the night when we met last?" The voice of Margrave here became very faint as he answered me, and his countenance began to exhibit the signs of an exhaustion almost mortal. "Be quick," he murmured, "or I die. The fluid which emanates from that wand, in the hand of one who envenoms that fluid with his own hatred and rage, will prove fatal to my life. Lower the wand from my forehead! low--low,--lower still!" "What was the nature of that rite in which you constrained me to share?" "I cannot say. You are killing me. Enough that you were saved from a great danger by the apparition of the protecting image vouchsafed to your eye; otherwise you would--you would--Oh, release me! Away! away!" The foam gathered to his lips; his limbs became fearfully convulsed. "One question more: where is Lilian at this moment? Answer that question, and I depart." He raised his head, made a visible effort to rally his strength, and gasped out,-- "Yonder. Pass through the open space up the cliff, beside a thorn-tree; you will find her there, where she halted when the wand dropped from my hand. But--but--beware! Ha! you will serve me yet, and through her! They said so that night, though you heard them not. They said it!" Here his face became death-like; he pressed his hand on his heart, and shrieked out, "Away! away! or you are my murderer!" I retreated to the other end of the room, turning the wand from him, and when I gained the door, looked back; his convulsions had ceased, but he seemed locked in a profound swoon. I left the room,--the house,--paused by Waby; he was still sleeping. "Awake!" I said, and touched him with the wand. He started up at once, rubbed his eyes, began stammering out excuses. I checked them, and bade him follow me. I took the way up the open ground towards which Margrave had pointed the wand, and there, motionless, beside a gnarled fantastic thorn-tree, stood Lilian. Her arms were folded across her breast; her face, seen by the moonlight, looked so innocent and so infantine, that I needed no other evidence to tell me how unconscious she was of the peril to which her steps had been drawn. I took her gently by the hand. "Come with me," I said in a whisper, and she obeyed me silently, and with a placid smile.