Out of the tossing, moaning sea, the moon had risen slowly, breaking through a rent scarf of cloud that barred her solemn, white disc, and silvering the foam of the racing waves that seemed to reflect the glittering fringe of the scudding vapor in the chill vault above them. There was no mellow radiance, no golden lustre such as southern moons are wont to shed, but a weird, fitful glitter on sea and land, that now shone with startling vividness, and anon waned, until sombre shadows seemed stalking in spectral ranks from some distant, gloomy ocean lair. It was one of those melancholy nights when the supernatural realm threatened to impinge upon the physical, that shuddered and shrank from the contact,--when the atmosphere gave vague hints of ghostly denizens, and every passing breeze seemed laden with sepulchral damps and vibrating with sepulchral sounds. Mrs. Gerome sat erect, with her hands resting on the balustrade, and under that mysteriously white moon her pearl-pale face looked as hopelessly cold and rigid as any Persepolitan sphinx, that nightly fronts the immemorial stars which watch the ruined tombs of Chilminar. Raising her fingers to her forehead, she lifted and shook a band of the shining white hair, and resumed her narration, in the same steady, passionless tone. "These gray locks were the fruit of that bridal day, for, on the afternoon that we sailed, I was taken very ill with what was called congestion of the brain,--was unconscious throughout the voyage, and when we reached Liverpool, my hair, once so black and glossy, was as you see it now. Ah! how often, since that time, have I heard poor Elsie mourning over my mother's untimely death, and quoting that ancient superstition, 'You should never wean a child while trees are in blossom; otherwise it will have gray hair.' Mr. Wright was so prostrated by grief at what had occurred, that he survived my departure only a few weeks; and at his death, Mr. Carlyle attempted to seize and control my estate. Urging the plea of my minority, he insisted upon assuming the charge of my property, and in order to consummate his avaricious designs, and screen his name from opprobrium, he told the world that I was hopelessly insane; and that the discovery of this fact, one hour after his marriage, had induced him to send me abroad under the care of a faithful and judicious nurse. To give plausibility to this statement, a paragraph was inserted in the New York papers announcing that I was a raving maniac and an inmate of an English asylum for lunatics. Mr. Clayton, my lawyer, was the sole surviving witness of my final interview, and of its financial provisions; and, had he yielded to bribes and threats which were unsparingly offered, God only knows what would have been my fate, since the tender mercies of my husband destined me to the cheerful and attractive precincts of a mad-house. To Mr. Clayton's stern integrity and brave defence, I am