The solemn tones of the Mummy sank like a foreboding of evil upon the heart of Elvira, and she shuddered involuntarily. "You think I have done wrong then?" said she. "I did not say that," returned he calmly.--"But had I not known the sex, I might perchance have felt surprised that you should avow, unasked for, a secret to Lord Edmund, which you have sedulously endeavoured to keep concealed even from me." "Alas," cried Elvira, "my motives--" "Were those of a woman," interrupted Cheops; "a being fated to work mischief. I do not blame you; for you have only acted according to your natural instinct." "What do you mean?" asked Elvira, turning pale and trembling, for the words of the Mummy created an undefinable dread upon her mind. "Listen!" said Cheops, "and I will tell you.--If you had confided your secret to me, it would have produced good, for I should have aided your passions, and I cannot give assistance unless it be required;--but by telling it to Lord Edmund you have produced evil, for he mistakes your lover for another, and the consequences may be fatal. Thus, it is clear that you could not have done otherwise than as you have; for when was a woman known to hesitate between good and evil, and not choose the latter?" "Mistakes my lover for another!" exclaimed Elvira. "For God's sake, explain yourself!" "He thinks you meant Prince Ferdinand," said the Mummy coldly, "and he is now seeking him in order to destroy him." "Oh, God!--Oh, God!" cried Elvira in the bitterest agony: "what will become of me? where is Edmund! Let me fly to implore him to spare the prince!" "It does not appear to me," said Cheops still more calmly, "that your endeavours to preserve him are at all likely to produce the effect you wish; for, as Lord Edmund already believes you love the prince, and as that belief is the reason of his hatred, your showing a violent anxiety for his welfare does not appear to me exactly the mode most calculated to destroy his suspicions." "True! true!" cried Elvira, wringing her hands. "Alas! alas! what will become of me?" whilst, as she spoke, a piercing cry rang in her ears, and a sudden rush of all the persons in the gardens took place towards one particular spot. Scarcely knowing what she did, Elvira followed the crowd, and shrieked with indescribable terror as she heard the clashing of swords. Pale and trembling, she hurried forward, and arrived just as Prince Ferdinand, uttering a deep groan, fell beneath the sword of Lord Edmund. Elvira screamed, and throwing herself upon the body, endeavoured in vain to revive it, quite forgetting in the excess of her agitation the crowd that surrounded her, and the interpretation that might be put upon her behaviour. One sole idea occupied her mind, and chilled it with horror: it was, that her imprudence had most probably deprived a fellow-creature of existence.