"Mine unknown monitor!" she repeated the words, and a thousand strange and wayward fancies rose to her recollection. Often had she seen, when least expecting it, a stranger, who, in whatsoever place they met, preserved a silence respectful but mysterious. She had seen him in the places of public resort, in the solitary woods, and in the highways; but his reserve and secrecy were unbroken. When she inquired, not an individual knew him; and though his form and features were indelibly traced on her memory, she could never recall them without an effort, which, whether it was attended with more of pain than of pleasure, we will not venture to declare. Once or twice she had fancied, when awaking in the dead stillness of the night, that an invisible something was near and gazing upon her; but this feeling was soon forgotten, though often revived whenever she was more than usually sensitive or excited. The figure of the Moor was wonderfully similar to the form of the mysterious unknown. But the secret was now, at any rate, to be divulged; and a few hours would put her into possession of the key to unlock this curious cabinet. So thought Alice, and her own secret chambers of imagery were strangely distempered thereby. Was she beloved by one of a higher order of beings, a denizen of the invisible world, who tracked her every footstep, and hovered about her unseen? She had heard that such things were, and that they held intercourse with some favoured mortals--unlimited duration, and a nature more exalted, subject to no change, being vouchsafed to the chosen ones. The exploits at Stubley seemed to favour this hypothesis, and Alice fell into a delicious reverie, as we have seen, well prepared for the belief and reception of any stray marvels that might fall out by the way. Looking upon the moat which lay stagnant and unruffled beneath the quiet gaze of the moon, she thought that a living form emerged from the bushes on the opposite bank;--she could not be mistaken, it was her unknown lover. Breathless she awaited the result; but the shadows again closed around him, and she saw him not again. Bewildered, agitated, and alarmed, the day was springing faintly in the dim east when her eyelids lay heavy in the dew of their repose.