It was some moments before he could recover himself, or shake off the horror which had seized upon his soul. He listened, and with infinite satisfaction observed an unbroken silence throughout the house. He smiled at his own terrors, attributed them to the events of the day or the presence of the corpse, and determined not to look down into the lower room till he should be summoned thither in the morning. He walked to the casement, and peered through at the night. The clouds were many, black, and lowering, and the face of the sky looked angry, while the wind moaned with a strange and eerie sound. He turned from the window, with the intention of again trying to sleep, but the light from below attracted his eye, and he could not pass the aperture without taking one glance at the coffin and its lonely watcher. Ruth was earnestly gazing at the lower end of the room upon something without the sight of Owen. His attention was next fixed upon the corpse, and he thought he had never seen any living thing so lovely; and so calm was the aspect of her repose that it more resembled a temporary suspension of the faculties than the eternal stupor of death. Her features were pale, but not distorted, and there was none of the livid hue of death in her beautiful mouth and lips; but the flowers in her hand gave stronger demonstration of the presence of the power before whose potency their little strength was fading--drooping with a mortal sickness, they bowed down their heads in submission, as one by one they dropped from her pale and perishing fingers. Owen gazed till he thought he saw the grasp of her hand relapse, and a convulsive smile pass over her cold and rigid features. He looked again. The eyelids shook and vibrated like the string of some fine-strung instrument; the hair rose, and the head cloth moved. He started up ashamed. ‘Does the madness of this woman affect all who would sleep beneath her roof?’ he thought. ‘What is this that disturbs me, or am I yet in a dream? Hark!’ he muttered aloud, ‘What is that?’ It was the voice of Ruth. She had risen from her seat, and was standing near the coffin, apparently addressing someone who stood at the lower end of the room. ‘To what purpose is your coming now?’ she asked in a low and melancholy voice, ‘and at what do you laugh and gibe? Lo! behold. She is here, and the sin you know of cannot be. How can I take the life which another has already withdrawn? Go, go, hence, to your cave of night, for this is no place of safety for you.’ Her thoughts now took another turn. She seemed as if trying to hide someone from the pursuit of others. ‘Lie still! Lie still!’ she whispered. ‘Put out your light! So, so, they pass by, and do not see you. You are safe; good-night, good-night. Now will I home to sleep,’ and she seated herself in her chair, as if composing her senses to rest.