"The period which followed that wonderful hour was one of an Eden-like happiness, such as, I believe, this fallen world never could before have witnessed--it was the embodiment, in every hour and instant, of that blessing of which my Aletheia had so fervently spoken--the spiritual union which linked us in heart and soul alone, was as perfect as it was unearthly; and the intense bliss which flowed from it, on both of us, could only have been equaled by the love, no less intense, that made us what we were. "But, Lilias, of this brief dream of deep delight I will not and I can not speak. This is a record of misery and not of joy," he continued, turning round upon her almost fiercely. "It becomes not me, who have been the murderer of Aletheia's joyous life, to take so much as the name of happiness between my lips. It passed--it departed--that joy, as a spirit departs out of the body; unseen, unheard; you know not it is gone, till suddenly you see that the beautiful living form has become a stark and ghastly corpse!--and so, in like manner, our life became a hideous thing.... "Colonel Randolph asked me to go on an embassy to a distant town; the absence was to be but for a fortnight. We were to write daily to one another, and we thought nothing of it. Nevertheless, in one sense, we felt it to be momentous. Aletheia designed, if an opportunity occurred, to inform her father of the change in her existence, and the irrevocable fate to which she had consigned herself. She had delayed doing so hitherto, because his mind had been fearfully disturbed by grievous disappointments in public affairs; and as he was a man of peculiarly sensitive temperament, she would not add to his distresses by the announcement of the fact, which she knew he would consider the great misfortune of his life. It was impossible, indeed, that the doating father could fail to mourn bitterly over the sacrifice of his one beloved daughter, to the man who dared not so much as give her barren life the protection of his name lest haply, he wed her to a maniac. "It was within two days of my proposed return to their home, that an express arrived in fiery haste to tell me Colonel Randolph had fallen from his horse, had received a mortal injury, and was dying. I was summoned instantly. He had said he would not die in peace till he saw me. One hurried line from Aletheia, in addition to the aid-de-camp's letter, told how even, in that awful hour, I was first and last in his thoughts. It ran thus: 'He is on his death-bed, and I have told him all. I could not let him die unknowing the consecration of his child to one so worthy of her. But, alas! I know not why, it seems almost to have maddened him. He says he will tell you all; come, then, with all speed.'