Gradually, however, she seemed in part to recognise him. The look of inquiry and alarm gave place to a fixed, glaring, icy stare of unmixed dread and horror; and when he had now come to within six or eight paces of her, still without speaking, she cried, in a wild, low voice-- “Great God! great God! has he come up from the grave to reproach me! I am true, Raoul; true to the last, my beloved!” And with a long, shivering, low shriek, she staggered, and would have fallen to the earth had he not caught her in his arms. But she had fainted in the excess of superstitious awe, and perceived not that it was no phantom’s hand, but a most stalwart arm of human mould that clasped her to the heart of the living Raoul de St. Renan. PART III. “For there were seen in that dark wall, Two niches, narrow, dark, and tall. Who enters by such grisly door, Shall ne’er, I ween, find exit more.”--WALTER SCOTT. It would be wonderful, were it not of daily occurrence, and to be observed by all who give attention to the characteristics of the human mind, how quickly confidence, even when shaken to its very foundations, and almost obliterated, springs up again, and recovers all its strength in the bosoms of the young of either sex. Let but a few more years pass over the heart, and when once broken, if it be only by a slight suspicion, or a half unreal cause, it will scarce revive again in a lifetime; nor then, unless proofs the strongest and most unquestionable can be adduced to overpower the doubts which have well-nigh annihilated it. In early life, however, before long contact with the world has blunted the susceptibilities, and hardened the sympathies of the soul, before the constant experience of the treachery, the coldness, the ingratitude of men has given birth to universal doubt and general distrust, the shadow vanishes as soon as the cloud which cast it is withdrawn, and the sufferer again believes, alas! too often, only to be again deceived. Thus it was with St. Renan, who a few moments before had given up even the last hope, who had ceased, as he thought, to believe even in the possibility of faith or honor among men, of constancy, or purity, or truth, in women, no sooner saw his Melanie, whom he knew to be the wife of another, solitary and in tears, no sooner felt her inanimate form reclining on his bosom, than he was prepared to believe anything, rather than believe her false. Indeed, her consternation at his appearance, her evident dismay, not unnatural in an age wherein skepticism and infidelity were marvellously mingled with credulity and superstition, her clear conviction that it was not himself in mortal blood and being, did go far to establish the fact, that she had been deceived either casually or--which was far more probable--by foul artifice, into the belief that her beloved and plighted husband was no longer with the living.