"Night and day--night and day," he murmured, "have I passed to complete my thought, my _dream_--for I dreamed I saw her thus; and how like it is! What is wanting? the spark of life to make it move and speak to me. Speak to me! No, she would turn away, either in indifference, and love for another, or horror of me! Perhaps I have murdered her!" and the man's voice sank to a hollow whisper--"her, and her infant! Oh, if I have!" and the cold dew stood on his brow at the thought. "What a bitter reckoning there will be against me when they stand before heaven to condemn! Not only here, but hereafter! Never to find peace again, nor rest, nor happy thought? Oh! life is indeed a burthen; and death a terror!" He sank for some time in silent thought before her; then brushing away the dew from his brow, and hastily drawing the curtain before the statue, he turned away. "Poor, weak fool!" he cried contemptuously, "I am not fit to be alone. She _was_ false--false to them, the nurses of her childhood--false to me, her loving husband--false to heaven! I will destroy all memory of her." He tore back the curtain, and raised his arm to do so--but the arm fell. "No," he said, turning away, "'tis a work of art--only that; only these have I to spur me over the mountains of sorrow, before I meet death--art and occupation, inactivity would be madness. And she, her cousin!" and he laughed aloud in scorn, "thinks I love her. That having loved Minnie, I could give even the memory of that affection so base a counterfeit! Heartless, worldly, proud earth-worm!--only this! to place herself beside----But I will not dream of her! If that other had held in her veins one drop of human blood, she would have shielded, upheld, watched over _her_, and she had not been lost. I was too rude a guardian; I loved her with a lion's love, and the shrinking thing, in terror, sought refuge where words were soft, and the hand gentler; but the heart--the heart, his did not love like mine! Mine would have poured out its every drop of life's current, to spare one hair of her fair head from suffering.----I am growing weak--weak--womanly weak," and he moved feverishly about the room, whispering to himself, "I must shake this off, I have a part to play; I must avoid solitude, seek excitement; time may do much, bring oblivion, as it darkens the mental vision. _She_ will be here to-day--she who loves to entangle--to wanton with the insect awhile, and then crush it with her heel. Crush me!--me!!" and he laughed aloud. "I will bring her down, in her subdued pride, to acknowledge that she envies even the place in hatred, which her once despised cousin holds in my heart. I will bring her to marry another in hate, and love me in unloved bitterness, and be false to him--_if I will_. I will revenge Minnie, even though I cast her from me--_only I_ had a right to condemn and blast her." A bell sounded in the outer chamber. "'Tis she!" he cried. "Not _here yet_; there is a spirit in the place--I have evoked