"Hush!" said Herman, and pointed to a small couch, on which a boy of some three years was sleeping; his rosy face, ruffled by a smile, and his hair lying in thick curls all about his snow-white forehead. "Hush!" again said Herman, and pointed to a curtained bed. A beautiful woman was sleeping there, with her sleeping infant cradled on her arm. The faces of the mother and babe, laid close together on the pillow, looked very beautiful--almost holy--in the soft mysterious light. "My wife! my children!" gasped Herman. As he spoke, the agitation of his face was horrible to look upon. Dermoyne felt his heart leap to his throat. He could not convince himself that it was not a dream. Again and again he turned from the face of Barnhurst to the rosy boy on the couch--to the beautiful mother and her babe, resting there in the half-broken shadows of the curtained bed,--and felt his knees tremble and his heart leap to his throat. And in contrast with this scene of holy peace,--a pure mother, sleeping in the marriage chamber with her children,--came up before him, Alice, and her bed of torture in the den of Madam Resimer. "This,--this," gasped Barnhurst, "this is why I couldn't marry Alice!" Arthur was convulsed by opposing emotions. "Devil!" he uttered with set teeth and clenched hands,--"and with a wife and children like these, you could still plot the ruin of poor Alice!" "Husband," said the wife, as she awoke from her sleep--"have you come at last? I waited for you so long!" * * * * * Leave we this scene, and retrace our steps. The revel in THE TEMPLE is at the highest. The masks begin to fall. Hark! to the whispers which mingle softly with the clinking of champagne glasses. By all means let us enter THE TEMPLE. PART FOURTH. IN THE TEMPLE. FROM MIDNIGHT UNTIL DAWN. DECEMBER 24, 1844. CHAPTER I. IN THE TEMPLE--THE CENTRAL CHAMBER. It was two o'clock on the morning of the 24th of December, 1844, when Frank led Nameless over the threshold of a magnificent but dimly-lighted hall. Attired in black velvet, the golden cross upon her breast, and with a white vail falling like a snowflake over her face and raven hair, she pressed his hand and led him forward to the light. You cannot, by the changes of his countenance, trace the emotions now busy at his heart; for his face is concealed by a mask; a cap, with a drooping plume, shades his brow; his form is attired in a tunic of black velvet, gathered to his waist by a scarlet sash; a falling collar discloses his throat; and there is a white cross upon his breast, suspended from his neck by a golden chain. His brown hair, no longer wild and matted, but carefully arranged by a woman's hand, falls in glossy masses to his shoulders. "Stand here, my knight of the white cross, and observe some of the mysteries of our Temple."