O sanguine book of History! Romance with perfume cloaks thy must, But he who shakes the page may see --Dust. Stiff hangs the arras in the gloom; I turn my head awhile to gaze: Here lordly stallions fret and fume, Here streams o'er briar and brake the chase. Here sounds a horn, here turns a face, How filled with fires of life and lust! Wind shakes the arras and betrays --Dust. Ephemeral hand inditing this Great hound that lolls against my knee, Lips pursed in thought as if to kiss Regret--full soon the time must be. When one shall search, but find not ye, For that dim moth whose labours rust All forms in time or tapestry --Dust. Forth offspring to the perch and then Clap wings--or fall, if find you must This saddest fate of books or men --Dust. DEATH THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY PROLOGUE I had almost forgotten James Wilder's existence, when, one night in June, I received an urgent message asking me to call upon him without delay. An hour later I was sitting in his library, and in the arm-chair opposite mine was sunk what seemed the spectre of my friend. During the ten months that had elapsed since our last meeting he had passed from middle life to premature old age. "I am glad you have come," he said, "I am in need of a friend, but do not speak to me yet, that is, for a moment, I wish to think." His eyes fell from me to the carpet, he seemed watching something, and his thin lips were curled in a ghostly smile. The room was hot and oppressive, flowers were heaped everywhere in profusion, and the large wood fire burning in the grate mixed its faint aromatic smell with the perfume of the roses and tube-roses lolling in their porcelain bowls. I sat watching the burning logs and thinking. I had known Wilder for some years, I had been his intimate friend, but how much did I know really about him? Not much. I had dined with him, talked with him, exchanged opinions; I knew that he was wealthy, that he owned a house somewhere in the country, to which he never invited friends, and of which I had heard rumours needless to set down here. That he was an opium eater I knew, and that was the extent of my knowledge of the man. Of the being who existed behind that careworn, weary face, I knew absolutely nothing, but I had always guessed it to be occupied with some secret trouble, pressed upon by some sin or sorrow of which it dared not speak; also, by some freak of imagination, I had always coupled this imaginary sorrow of Wilder's with that house in the country of which I had received so many mysterious hints. Suddenly I started from my reverie. Wilder was speaking. "Ah, my dear ----, I have been trying to brace myself for the effort, but I cannot, I cannot; what I have to ask of you, you will do without question if you are my friend, but to speak of it all, to go over that terrible ground, oh! impossible, impossible, impossible."