"I thank you, once more, and with all my soul. Your words come from your heart. They confirm the intuitions of my own heart. For the consolation which these words afford, accept the gratitude of a dying woman. And now,--" she extended her hand, "and now farewell!" The priest, who, through this entire interview, had never ceased to regard her, with his eyes almost hidden by his down-drawn brows,--struggling all the while to repress an agitation which increased every moment, and well nigh mastered him,--the priest also rose with these words on his lips: "You dying, sister! you seem young, and full of life, and with the prospect of long years before you." It was either the impulse of madness, or the force of a calm conviction, which induced her to reply: "In one hour I will be dead." The priest silently took her offered hand, and at the same instant, emerged from the circle of shadow, into the full glow of the light. There was something like magic in the pressure of their hands. And the woman lifted her vail, disclosing a beautiful face, which already touched with the pallor of death, was lighted by dark eyes, whose brightness was almost supernatural. Lifting her gaze heaven-ward, she said, as though thinking aloud,-- "In another world, Ernest, I will meet, I will know, I will love you!" But ere the words had passed her lips,--yes, as the slowly lifted vail disclosed her face,--the priest sank back, as though stricken by a blow from an iron hand, uttering a wild and incoherent cry,--sank back as though the grave had yielded up its dead, and confronted him with a form, linked with holy and yet accursed memories. "O, Frank, is it thus we meet," he cried, and fell on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. The sound of his voice, at once lifted the scales from her eyes,--she knew him,--the vague consciousness of his presence, which had agitated her for the past few moments, became certainty. She knew that in Father Luke, who knelt before her, she beheld Ernest Walworth, her plighted husband. Sad and terrible indeed, must have been the change, which had fallen upon his countenance, that she did not know him, when he sat before her in the shadow! Trembling in every nerve, and yet strong with the energy of a soul, that had taken its farewell of this life, she gave utterance to her feelings, in a single word,--his own,--pronounced in the soft low tones of other days. "Ernest!" "O, Frank, Frank, is it thus we meet!" he cried in wild agony, as he raised his face. "You,--you,--the only woman that I ever loved,--you, whose very memory has torn my heart, since that fatal hour, when I met you in the accursed haunt of death,--" "Ernest you will sit by me as I die, you will press your hand in forgiveness on my forehead, my last look shall encounter yours--"