The young girl had, as it will happen, felt all the changes of her own heart which she described in her letter, once more in their full strength. The tormenting conflict between love and ambition, the desire to read clearly her own heart, had put the pen into her hand, and she had at last obtained in the process of writing that peace which had been so far from her when she began her letter. She was leaning back in her chair with folded arms, and was looking fixedly before her as in a dream. She listened mechanically to the modulations of the night-wind in the poplar-trees before the window, through which she heard occasionally the low thunder of the ocean as it dashed against the shore. This music recalled to her the earliest recollections of her childhood, and with them very different sensations from those of which she had been writing. Suddenly she started and listened breathlessly towards the window. Through the mournful sounds of the wind she heard the singing of a soft, deep voice. At first she fancied it was a trick of her excited imagination, but as she listened more attentively, she distinguished the words. The voice sang: "Thy face, alas! so fair and dear, I saw it in my dreams quite near. It was so angel-like, so sweet, And yet with pain and grief replete, The lips alone, they are still red, But soon they will be pale and dead." Then the wind became louder again and silenced the voice; then it began once more distinctly: "The lips alone, they are still red, But soon they will be pale and dead." Helen trembled in all her limbs. She knew the singer could not look up into the lighted room; but she felt as if his eyes--his blue dreamy eyes--were resting on her. She dared not move, she hardly dared to breathe. Once more, but at a greater distance now, scarcely to be distinguished, he sang: "The lips alone, they are still red, But soon they will be pale and dead." Helen thought of the image in her dream, the pale crucified one, who shook his head so sadly when the priest was saying the blessing; and she thought of the dagger which had been thrust into his side up to the golden hilt, and of the drops of blood which slowly trickled down, and shuddering, she pressed, her face in her hands. CHAPTER V.