Nothing is more touching, more poetical, and more mysterious, than the old Christian temples, which like giants of stone have braved the ravages of time and the hands of men. Generations, as they pass away, worship beneath their arches, and the prayers of many centuries have echoed in their walls, which are yet open to coming time. The deep notes of the organ attracted the attention of Monte-Leone and increased his excitement. He crossed the church, went down the nave, and approached a lateral chapel where a taper was burning with a flickering light. The Count entered the chapel. Those who had seen him amid the brilliant society of Naples, or amid the awful judicial ordeal to which he had just been subjected, and which he had undergone with such coolness and audacity, would not have recognized the humble and trembling man, who knelt before a sarcophagus of black marble surmounted with the coronet and arms of the Monte-Leoni. The Count knelt at the tomb of his father--his father, who was his religion and his faith. He would have thought himself unworthy of his protection had he not gone immediately on his release to worship those consecrated relics. Prostrate at the monument he prayed with fervor. All the recent events of his life occurred to him. And in the kind of hallucination caused by prolonged meditation, awake as he was, he entered the realm of dreams. He seemed to see two genii seeking, the one to drag him towards heaven and the other towards the abyss. The genii were two females. They recalled the features of two charming and beautiful women, whom he remembered. One had the gentle and pale expression of Aminta; the other, the more masculine and stately air of La Felina. The one which led him heavenward was Aminta. The sound of the organ, the mysterious light which pervaded the chapel, the religious effect of the whole scene, exaggerated the excitement of the Count, and contributed to add to his nervousness. Two mild melancholy voices, like those of angels praying for the guilty, mingled with the organ's notes, and Monte-Leone fancied that he heard in the distance the voices of departed souls. The blood of Monte-Leone became chilled, for at that moment he asked his father to reveal to him the future, and guide him in his perilous path. The song of the dead seemed to reply to him. The Count, like other energetic and brave men, like Caesar and Napoleon, was very superstitious. We have seen him brave death without trembling, though it came in the most terrible form. He who had struggled against the waves of the sea, and confronted the Grand Judge of Naples, grew pale when he heard the _de profundis_ chanted in an obscure church and by the side of a tomb. By a strange fatality, nothing seemed wanting which could increase the sadness of Monte-Leone. Just as he was about to leave the church the solitary light was extinguished. The young man fancied this accident a declaration of the will of God.