"It is my love that makes me look at you; but I will not look if it gives you pain;" and I turned to the window, and stared out with as heavy a heart as ever a man had. She fell to singing to herself a little melodious air with Italian words, of which I caught only the first line; "Ben veggio che'l mio fin consenti e vuoi," and breaking suddenly off, she stole up to me, threw her arms around my neck, and whispered: "Will you be glad when I am dead?" "I should wish to die too." "I wish," she continued, in a half-chanting dreamy voice, "we could pass into heaven as we are, without dying. I would take your hand, and we would float to the stars, up through the still air, and on and on, until we came to the City of God. There we should be met by the Angel of Peace, who would lead us to the thrones of the Blessed Virgin and her dear Son, and in their holy presence----look!" she cried, pointing over my shoulder to the garden, "there is a white form rising--do you see it? I can see the trees through its body--how steadily it soars! yet it has no wings. I follow it. Look, Arthur." Hitherto I had not been looking at her as she had desired. Now I turned. Her eyes were wide open, with a fixed stare on the sky; her lips were parted, and she breathed with deep respirations. Presently, she bowed her head, made a gesture with her hand, and crossing herself, muttered, "It is gone." "Come," said I, taking her hand, "let us go downstairs." That night, whilst I was pacing the balcony, pondering my position, and less lamenting it than deploring my powerlessness to save my wife from the calamity whose shadow was now on her, it entered my head to search her boxes or trunks for any papers or letters that might throw some light on her past. Under any other circumstances, I should have dismissed such a resolution from my mind. A wife may have secrets, and her husband should respect them. But Dr. F---- had intimated his fear that her madness was being fed by some sorrow. To have discovered, that I might remove, her sorrow, I would have been guilty of any mean act. I did not love myself so well as I loved her. I pretty well knew I had not been born with the detective faculty, and apprehended that my search would be defeated by clumsiness. Still I resolved to attempt it. My wife had several trunks ranged in my dressing-room, and one of those large boxes draped with chintz, called ottomans.