The door swung open—but he did not know it. Alice, his lost wife, stood within, motionless—pale—but he did not see her. She gazed at him—growing paler every instant—she glided toward him—she stood over him—where he sat, with his face buried in his hands—but he gave no sign of consciousness. Trembling, pale, and cold with fear, she laid her icy hands upon him, saying, in a voice faint and hollow with exhausted emotion: “Aaron, I have come.” He sprang up as if shot; his face ashy pale, his countenance aghast, hair bristling, eyes starting with horror, as he exclaimed: “Then such things are! You have taken form at last! or else—yes—it must be so—I am mad—mad!” Dashing his hands against his forehead, as though to shut out a horrible vision, he sunk back again into his chair. Astonished, terrified, shuddering, Alice approached again, kneeled by his side, spoke gently, soothingly, deprecatingly to him. But ere she ceased speaking his hands dropped from his forehead, his head sank upon his bosom, his form swayed to and fro an instant, and then he fell forward, prostrate, at the feet of his wife. A succession of violent screams from Alice brought Dr. Hardcastle rushing in at one door, and Nettie, in her nightgown, flying in at the other. They gathered around the fallen man. They raised him, set him in his chair. General Garnet was dead. * * * * * After that the wild shrieks of a distracted child, refusing to be comforted, filled the house of death. CHAPTER XXXV. THE FLIGHT OF TIME. And years flew by, and the tale at last Was told as a sorrowful one, long past. _—Mistletoe Bough._ It was the morning of Garnet Seabright’s majority, when she was to come into possession of the vast estate given her by her adopted father, and she was expecting a visit from her trustee to give an account of his stewardship and yield up his office. Lionel Hardcastle, foreordained by General Garnet as the husband of his inheritrix, had been appointed trustee of the estate and guardian of the heiress, and of—his own interests at the same time.