“It is too horrible for belief! The Father murdered by his own child,
the brother poisoned by the brother, and the beautiful woman sacrificed
by a nameless outrage. A maze of misery and crime! It is indeed terrible—
the very paper on which these deeds are written, breathes of the
charnel. But Paul, you turn your gaze away. You do not look upon
me. Tell me, I beseech you, what has this Revelation to do with your
fate.”

And the beautiful woman, whose death-like cheek contrasted with her
raven hair, gave a wierd and spiritual loveliness to that face, not long ago
so ripe with passion, glided over the floor, with noiseless steps, and laid
her hands upon the shoulders of Paul Ardenheim.

He stood motionless, his averted face buried in his hands. He felt her

[figure description] Page 496.[end figure description]

touch, but did not turn and look upon her, for the nameless revelations of
the Sealed Chamber—revelations even more dark and harrowing than
those embodied in the Manuscripts—now clouded his whole being with a
stifling horror.

“Paul!” she whispered—“I dare not read farther; I have not the
courage. The very touch of those pages chills my blood. Speak to me,
Paul. Tell me the secret of this mystery.”

“Read on,” muttered Paul, still hiding his face in his hands—“Read
on, and learn the history of our race, and drink in, with every page, some
portion of the madness which has cursed my existence, since the fatal
hour, when your voice—yours—persuaded me to cross the threshold of
the forbidden chamber. Read on!”

“Do you reproach me, Paul?” whispered the Wizard's child.

He turned and confronted her, grasping her wrist, while the light fell
upon his ashen and colorless visage.

“Reproach you! No! No! For so much sorcery there is in your look,
so much witchcraft in your tone, that even now, as I stand before you, at
once conscious of your presence and of my own dark fate, it seems to me,
that for you I would sacrifice my immortal soul,—yes—at a word, a look
from you I would strike my father's gray hairs into dust!”

He had been wild,—mad—before, but now his pale face and settled
tone, his look at once fixed and dazzling, overwhelmed this beautiful
woman with a freezing awe. His wild reproaches, his wandering ejaculations,
his eyes rolling vaguely, his cheeks flushed with passion—all these
she could have borne, and borne with a secret triumph—but this calm
madness, this conscious despair, palsied every vein with the leaden apathy
of terror.

“Take up the dark record, once more,” he exclaimed, while she felt
his hand, as it clasped her wrist, grow cold as ice: “Let not the breath
of the charnel fright you, let not the atmosphere of unnatural crimes make
your soul afraid. Read on! Learn the history of our Race by heart;
steep your soul in every damning detail. Learn how Lord Ranulph of
Mount Sepulchre, stained with the blood of father and brother, crept behind
the chair of his beautiful wife, and sheathed his dagger in her bosom,
even as her babe was sleeping there. Learn how the man who had
stabbed his father, and poisoned his brother became the Assassin of the
woman, whose love and life had been mingled with his in the veins of
that innocent child. Nay, do not tremble and turn pale; you have asked
of me, the Secret of the Sealed Chamber; I will tell that secret, although
every word costs me an agony, deeper than the tortures of the damned.”

He paused for a moment, and passed his hand over his forehead; the
beautiful woman shuddered as she beheld the expression of his features.

“The child was not his own. The blood that flowed in its veins, was
poisoned in its every throb, by his brother's unnatural crime. Thoughts

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like these cankered the soul of Ranulph; his heart became corroded by
suspicion. Therefore, he stabbed his wife; stabbed the pure woman, who
at least, had been no partner in his brother's wrong. She was dead; the
child smiled in his face from her mangled bosom. But the history of our
Race does not end here. That child grew to manhood, and became the
Lord of Mount Sepulchre. He, too, became a father: and he, like his
Grandsire, died by the hand of his son. Since that hour, through the
course of two hundred years, there have been eight Lords of Mount Sepulchre,
and every one has gone to his grave a Parricide, slain by the
hand of Parricide. You will say that there is madness lurking in our
blood, from the moment of birth; you will attempt to explain this red history
of unnatural murder, by the idea of a constitutional malady, transmitted
from father to son, for two hundred years. But no! no! Had
you crossed the forbidden threshold, and seen what I saw, and stood face
to face with Fate, as I stood, hollow words like these could never pass
your lips.”

“Paul! Your words fill me with horror beyond the power of utterance,”
cried the Wizard's child, attempting to free her wrist from the clasp
of his icy hand.

“Read on! Take up the blood-red record once more. You will there
discover, that my father, the younger son of this accursed House, soon
after the last Parricide, which took place not more than twenty years ago,
determined to leave the Old World, and bury himself and his children in
the profound solitudes of the New. He was resolved to save me, his
only son, from the curse of our house. Therefore, he renounced the
world, gave up his very name, and crossed the ocean. No human eye
tracked his course, no human eye recognized in the pale old man of Wissahikon,
the Last Lord of Mount Sepulchre. He had defied fate; he had
evaded destiny. The hand of his Son should never be stained with the
guilt of Parricide. This was his thought; a thought which breathed a
blessing on his solitude, and turned the wild Wissahikon into the very
garden of God. Now mark the sequel. All his plans—elaborated and
woven together through the years of a life-time—were crushed, not in a
day, not in an hour, but in a moment. Scattered to air, by the breath of
a woman!”

He fixed upon the Wizard's daughter the light of his eyes, flashing
with scorn, and every lineament of his face was agitated by a smile,—a
smile which was Satanic in its very mockery of joy.

“A woman!” he repeated: “Her breath destroyed the Hopes of a
life-time.” Again he smiled in mockery.

“Nay, you must listen. My father had preserved that Record of Mount
Sepulchre, in all his wanderings. He had concealed it within the chamber,
whose door was marked with a cross. It was his thought, that his
Son should never know the history of the parricidal race, until the Father

[figure description] Page 498.[end figure description]

was dust. And even then, this Son could not be won from his seclusion,
into the great world, by the temptations of rank and power, for the name
of Mount Sepulchre had long ceased to the title of his Race. It was the
name which our house had borne in ages past, but it had been replaced,
for a hundred years at least, by other names and more swelling titles.
Therefore, Paul, the son, reading that Chronicle after the death of his
Father, would not dream that his Race, or their once immense possessions,
had an existence any longer. He would only know, that he was the last
of the Mount Sepulchres; that he was buried in the forests of Wissahikon;
and that the once boundless domains of his fathers, their Castles in
England and Germany, their gold counted by millions, and their broad
lands measured by leagues—all were now embodied in the—ruined Block
House of Wissahikon. That the great name of the Race, their fame ennobled
by titles only second to Royalty, had dwindled down into the name
of the friendless boy—`Paul Ardenheim!”'

Again he paused—looked sadly in her face—while her eyes brightened
with a Thought which she dared not speak.

“His race may exist at this hour, in all their wealth and power. Another
may count his gold, and wear his titles, while the true Lord remains
unknown and friendless among these forests.”

And as Paul stood gazing in her face,—his death-cold hand upon her
wrist—the music from the lawn came gushing through the window, like
the joyous peal of a Bridal Festival.

“Read that record, beautiful woman!” Paul continued, after a breathless
pause. “Then you will know something of the mysteries of that fatal
chamber; but the full mystery—the complete history of the hour which
I spent there—I may never tell to mortal ears. But listen! There,
within that Sealed Chamber, which I had entered by a Perjury—entered
because the sorcery of your eyes and voice had maddened me—there, I
stood face to face with Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre, who lived three hundred
years ago.”

“Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre! This is a dream!” The hand which
clasped her wrist, had changed from ice to fire.

“I stood face to face with him, and looked into his eyes, and heard his
voice. It was not a Corpse which touched me with its hand—it was not
a Spirit evoked from the Sepulchre, like Samuel of old, which conversed
with me as I stood enveloped in the horrors of that forbidden place. But
it seemed to me, as if I stood in the presence of a Corpse, animated by a
living Soul. Even now, my heart writhes and grows cold at the mere
remembrance of that hour.”

As though the memory of that incredible interview, had transformed
him into the very image which his imagination pictured—a dead body instinct
with a living Soul,—Paul Ardenheim paused, his lips moved but
framed no sound; his form was motionless, his face without life or color

[figure description] Page 499.[end figure description]

his eyes alone, shining with intense light, told that the life still lingered
in his breast.

And the Woman so imposing in her voluptuous beauty, this incarnation
of all that is lovely or bewitching, among the forms of external nature,
this creature whose touch was madness, whose kiss kindled every
throb into living flame, whose glance paralyzed the reason, or only roused
it into frenzied action,—even She shrank with terror from the face of
Paul Ardenheim. Her finger on her dewy lip, one hand placed upon her
breast, as if to still its throbbings, she retreated a step, and gazed upon
him through the meshes of her unbound hair.

At this moment she looked like Esther, beautiful and voluptuous, queen-like
in form and stature, and yet with an unutterable fear, creeping through
every vein, from her heart to her eyes. Yes, she seemed like the impassioned
Jewess, summoned suddenly from the silence of her luxurious
chamber, by the death-shrieks of her murdered People, or by the blind
anger of her Monarch-Husband.

“Paul you spoke with Ranulph who lived three hundred years ago,”
she exclaimed after a pause, and her low voice, resounded through every
nook of the still chamber: “You stood face to face with this living Soul,
enshrined within the breast of a Corpse? It was a dream Paul, only a
dream, believe me. Your imagination was excited to madness, by the
revelations of this manuscript.”

Paul fixed upon her a vacant gaze, which looked into her eyes, without
seeming conscious of her presence.

“I crossed the threshold, and at once my light was drowned in a luminous
radiance, which shone around the fatal chamber. In the centre of
that radiance appeared the corpse-like form, and from the dead face, the
eyes gazed upon me, and at the same time, filled the place with light,
unlike the rays of sun, or moon, or star, but resembling the pale radiance
which flutters over the graves of the newly-buried dead. And he spoke to
me; his lips did not move, there was no sound, and yet I heard his voice. It
seemed, as though that Soul, enshrined in the breast of a Corpse, conversed
with mine, in the language of the other World, without one accent
or syllable of mortal speech. Was this a dream? Oftentimes I have
tried to hug that idea to my soul, but in vain. It was no dream, but reality,
as cold and palpable, as that which thrills through your frame, when
your hand, for the first time, encounters the dead face of a beloved one.”

“Do you remember the words, Paul?” faltered the Wizard's daughter.

“Could you look upon my heart, after death, you would behold those
words written there—yes, stamped upon my very being.

`Until the last descendant of that incestuous Child is swept from the
earth, I am condemned to live. From the hour, when my hand, smote
the bosom of Eola, until this moment, when I stand face to face, with you,
Paul Ardenheim, I have walked beside the Lords of your race, and

[figure description] Page 500.[end figure description]

infused the poison of my accused existence, into their being. One by one
they have died; the Parricide father by the hand of the Parricide son;
it was my Soul, that prompted every murder; it was I, that nerved every
arm, and I—in spite of all my Remorse—have stood smiling, while Parricide
after Parricide, was gathered to the grave-yard dust.

`Think not to escape me, Paul of Ardenheim, in whose soul I recognize
some portion of my own. Your father has traversed half the globe;
he has forsaken the wealth, the honor of his race; he has reared you
afar from the world, reared you in ignorance of your race, your fortunes,
and your very Name. But I, Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre have been
near you, from the hour of birth; have watched every moment of your
existence; have loved you, as I saw your Mind grow into shape and
power, and at the appointed time, I will nerve your arm, for the deed of
Parricide.

`When the hour comes your Father will die by your hand.

`Because I have looked upon your life with love, because I have been
somewhat won from the cold horror of my existence, by the spectacle of
a heart, so young and brave as yours, nurtured into vigor, even amid these
virgin solitudes,—do not think that my arm can spare, or my soul
relent.

`I can never know the blessing of Death, until all—all—of the race of
the incestuous Child, even the child of Eola, are swept from the face of
the earth.

`When the last is dead, then, and then only, I can die.

`It is true, that sometimes,—after long intervals of hopeless Evil—a
hope has dawned upon my soul. From a woman, descendant from Eola,
and like Eola in mind and form, I may obtain the blessed words, which
will permit me to—die. Those words, nothing more, than the last accents,
which fell from her lips; accents which will assure me, that she,
no willing partner in my brother's crime, and that the child which slept
upon her bosom, as I killed her, derived its life, from my veins. Yet
this Woman cannot appear, until the eighth Lord of your race, has fallen
by the blow of Parricide. And she must wear upon her bosom, a Medal,
which I hung around the neck of my dead wife, and buried with her
corse, on the Twelfth of November, 1539; a medal, which I had prepared
in anticipation of her death, bearing her name, the date of her murder,
and the sign of the Cross.

`This medal, or this embodied record of my crime, I saw twenty-one
years ago—saw it for the first time, since Eola's death—and upon the breast
of a beautiful woman. But the Eighth Lord, the head of the eighth generation
was not yet dead. With the consciousness that this medal, was at
once, the token of past crime and future forgiveness, I replaced it upon
the neck of the beautiful woman, descended from Eola, and resolved to
complete the long chain of Parricide, with the death of your father's

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father, the Eighth Lord of Mount Sepulchre. He died, by the hand of
your father's brother, but the beautiful Woman was dead. She was buried
in the Ocean. The medal lies there, with her bones. That hope
has gone out in utter darkness; I am left to my Remorse and to my career
of Crimes.

`Do not fancy, that it is an impalpable Spirit, a vague form of air, that
converses with you now. Paul Ardenheim I live,—have lived, for well-nigh
three hundred years. Learn at once the mystery of my beieg. When
I was young, when I first left my home of Mount Sepulchre, for other
lands, a latent hope was in my breast, that I might one day, achieve the
great secret, for which the Seers of ages had sought in vain, and become
Immortal, even upon this earth. The days and nights of long years, the
toil of my hand and my brain, were surrendered to this search. At last,
beneath the foundations of old Rome, in the Catacombs, those awful cities
of the dead, which spread beneath the feet of living millions, I grasped
the Secret; the Problem of ages was solved; the Truth for which the
Seers of forty centuries had sought in vain, became mine. I discovered
the hidden principle which Men call life, and even from the forms of the
dead, I wrung the knowledge, how to perpetuate that Life, and make it
Eternal even upon this earth.

`But at the same time, there passed from my Soul, all power to believe
in another World; all consciousness of a race of beings, superior in intelligence
to Man; all knowledge of an all-paternal Creator, whom men
call God. To me, from the moment when the pulses of a deathless life,
stirred in my veins, there was no longer Another World, nor a state of
being, higher and better than this earth; nor Saint, Angel, nor God. In a
word, the power to believe, passed from my nature; I became conscious
that I was to live on this earth, while the earth itself endured; to grow
old in knowledge; to become familiar with every principle of the machinery
which moves the Universe; and at the same time, to be as utterly
incapable of Faith—even Faith such as lights the beggar's heart, and
throws a halo round his very rags—as the dumb stones on which I trod.

`Was this existence, this Life which I myself had won, for Good or
for Evil?

`It seemed to me, as I stood palpitating with my new being, amid the
damps and shadows of those earth-hidden Cities of the Dead, that I might
become the Destiny of mankind. Watch over them, while ages rolled
away, and replace Superstition, Bigotry and War, with the calm and omnipotent
Unity of Universal Brotherhood. That I would reveal the great
secrets of the Universe, to a chosen few, and teach men to love one another,
by a simple disclosure of the sublime harmony, which pervades all
nature, from the Star that rolls surely on its way, through an orbit of millions
of miles, to the little flower, that only demands an inch of earth and
a drop of water for its existence. Yes, I said with unutterable rapture, I

[figure description] Page 502.[end figure description]

will gradually lift mankind into my own walk of Being. From year to
year, from age to age, I will swell the number of my chosen band, and
encircle myself with men re-created and purified by the Knowledge of the
great laws of the Universe. And at last, when ages shall have passed
away, I will select some one, superior to all others, in love and power,
and fill his veins with the same immortality that throbs in mine. Should
he prove faithless to his trust, and use his deathless life for purposes of
Evil, I can, at the worst, meet him in a sublime although terrible combat—
oppose my own immortality to his—track his footsteps over the globe,
surround him with the atmosphere of my Power—point him out to all
the world, even to the humblest of men, as the Wretch who would mar
the Divine Harmony of the Universe, by the spasmodic throbs of his own
selfish ambition:

`Divine Harmony of Universe?

`It is the law that guides the Star more surely on its accustomed
course, than your arm, in the moment of full health, can follow the impulse
of your Will. But let the Star depart but a moment from its orbit, and
lo! entire creations of Stars, of Suns, of Worlds, are wrecked in hopeless
chaos. And the man who suffers himself to perpetrate a wrong upon
man, his brother, arrests the very Order of the Universe with the deed;
and creates a chaos more dark and discordant, in the vast family of souls,
than the wandering Star in the boundless fraternity of Worlds.

`Thus I mused beneath the foundations of old Rome, in the Cities of
the Dead.

`It was my purpose, to use my deathless existence for the Good of
mankind.

`Behold the manner in which this purpose of boundless Good was
wrecked into a Necessity of hopeless Evil.

`A memory of Home came over me. I thought of my aged father, of
my younger brother; I resolved to leave the scene of my deathless toil,
the catacombs which had been the Alembic of my deathless life, and
return to England, and look once more upon the faces of my people.

`Eola was my companion. Her previous history need not be told, nor
is it for me to relate the manner in which her life was first interwoven
with the life of a man like me—a Student in the vast labarynth of unrevealed
Nature—a Scholar, whose book was the Universe, whose Masters
were the dead Seers of forgotten ages.

`But she had joined her fate with mine. When my brow was pale
with the horror of the night-long watch among the dead, when my eye
was mad with the glare of Thought,—Thought indulged and prolonged at
the expense of the physical being, until the heart was pulseless and the
nerves palsied—then Eola, who knew no learning but the instinct of
Woman's all-trusting Faith, would call me back to life with her presence,
wake the heart into motion with her voice, thrill the nerves into serene

[figure description] Page 503.[end figure description]

consciousness with her touch. In those moments, she was to me what a
calm lake is to an arid landscape,—what the eye is to the human face,—
what the first gleam of life was to the visage of the dead Lazarus.

`She was beautiful beyond all the daughters of earth. Had it not been
for the pure Soul, which shone calmly from her eyes, her form would
have presented only a type of animal beauty in its most exciting shape.
All that you can imagine of physical loveliness was hers. The rounded
limb, the clear skin, ripe with the young blood of virgin passion, the
bosom blooming with the very fulness of life, the gesture that bewitched
and the voice that held you dumb with its ever-changing music,—all that
you can picture of shape, color, sound, life, combined in one breathing
Harmony—all were hers. Never did the eye of the sensualist rest upon
a more voluptuous shape—never did the gaze of the devotee linger upon a
face more hallowed by calm and spiritual beauty.

`Such was Eola—a pure Soul, incarnate in a young and passionate form.

`And she was mine. Think not that her lip had ever quivered to my
kiss; do not for a moment dream that all this treasure, of untold loveliness,
ever became even by a single caress, less pure, less virgin, than
when it first came from the hand of unpolluted Nature.

`Eola was my virgin-wife. Never should the rites of our marriage
ripen into the consummation of full enjoyment, until her Being became
deathless as my own, and until the Wife, instinct in every vein with the
pulses of immortal life, might become the Mother of a deathless child.

`This was my resolve. For I had resolved to raise Eola to my own
sphere; to lift her from the decay that withers and the death that corrodes,
into beauty that could never fade, and youth that could never die.

`And with this resolve impressed upon my being, I came to England.
As the way-worn Scholar, under a false name and in an humble disguise.
I came to my father's Home. Where I expected to find an aged man, no
less rich in years than in the respect of men, a Patriarch encircled by his
grateful People, I only found a blind old man, chained and imprisoned,
like a savage beast. Where I had hoped to meet an honorable Brother,
with truth in his heart, and the atmosphere of a generous soul, kindling
noble deeds into life wherever he turned, I only met a brutal Debauchee,
surrounded by brutal Sensualists, and growing more debased every hour
in an atmosphere of pollution. From this wretch nothing was sacred.
The poor man, the serf who was forced to dig for a crust, and barter life
itself for an untimely grave—the mistaken vestal, who had thought to
crush all the passion and the hope of her young life, within the walls of a
Convent,—the good old man, the Father, who for years had looked forward
to old age, as the appropriate time for the full development of his
son's reverence and filial love—all these, alike, were the victims of the
base animal, My Brother. The Serf to his mere love of cruelty; the Nun
to his brutal lust; the Father to his no less brutal avarice.

[figure description] Page 504.[end figure description]

`And this wretched animal, this creature, who ere his youth was gone,
had grown hoary in the hyena's appetite, and the tiger's lust,—this Brother
of mine, it was, who mingled the pollution of his being with the pure
life of Eola, and made her bosom thrill with the life of a child as base as
himself.

`Eola became the Mother of his child, * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * *.

`He had roused the mere animal part of her nature—her soul was lost
in the delirium of the gross and earthy senses—she became the partner
of his appetite, and the Mother of his Child.

`And, for him I stained my hands with my Father's blood, and stamped
upon my deathless forehead, the hand of Cain!

`Do you begin to read the destiny of your Race, Paul of Ardenheim?
This woman whom I had destined to become the mother of a pure and
glorious Child, became the Mother of a Child, which as it kindled into
life in her breast was impressed in every fibre of its existence, with the
terrible necessity of Parricide. The Mother was conscious that my hand
had slain my father, and this consciousness was instilled into her Child
before it saw the light. This consciousness was the seed of a rich harvest
of unnatural crimes.

`The Child was sleeping on her bosom as I raised the steel, which deprived
her of life. There it slept with its father's baseness, the latent impulse
of Parricide, and some portion of its Mother's better nature, written
upon its stainless face. She died, but the Child I could not kill, for even
then a hope burned in my soul, that the life which beat in its veins was
derived from mine.

`I resolved to permit it to live, so that its very life might prove its
liveage.

`It lived; it grew to manhood; it struggled awhile with temptation,
soared awhile above the dust, and then sank with open arms into the embrace
of pollution. That child was at last a hoary old man, tottering to
the grave under the triple burden of age, disease and lust. And, even the
little space of life permitted to the aged sinner, was coveted by his son.
The Son slew his Father—then the lineage of Eola's Child was no
longer a doubt, no more a mystery to me.

`From that Child, Paul of Ardenheim, your race have descended. In
vain have the Lords of your Race attempted to escape the curse which
rested upon the birth of that child—and, as for you—the purity of Eola's
better nature may shed a halo around you for a little while, but the baseness
of my brother's blood, and the dark necessity of Parricide will work
their inevitable results at last, and like every one of your race, you, Paul
of Ardenheim, will sink into the grave of the Sensualist, with your brow
seared by the mark of Cain, your hand red with the dye of Parricide.'

[figure description] Page 505.[end figure description]

Thus far, in a voice unbroken by a single tremor, had Paul Ardenheim
repeated the words of the singular Being, whom he had encountered in
the Sealed Chamber. As he went on, his form immovable as an image
of stone, his eye shining steadily from his corpse-like face, his voice hollow
and deep, but undisturbed by one pause, or sign of hesitation, it
seemed to the beautiful woman that she beheld Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre
himself, that she heard his own sad accents, repeating the details of
his incredible history, while Paul Ardenheim passed entirely from her
sight.

But now he paused, he hesitated, overwhelmed by emotion he was unable
to proceed, and Paul Ardenheim once more stood before her.

“The full history of that hour I dare not repeat; it would strike me
dead, but to tell it to human ears,” he resumed, in a faint and gasping
voice; “He revealed to me, the page of the Future, and showed me the
gray hairs of my father, dabbled in blood. He, Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre,
depicted the utter folly of any attempt on my part to evade Fate, and
battle with Destiny, and yet—and yet—

“`And yet there is a Hope born of a Better World, and that Hope is
yours!'

“These words fell from his lips the moment before he disappeared.
Yes, in the very bitterness of his mockery, he pointed me to Heaven after
he had surrounded me with the atmosphere of Hell.—Beautiful woman!
Do you now comprehend my destiny?” Paul grasped her hand; his pale
cheek was tinged by a faint glow. “Do you now understand the source
of the Voice, which spoke to you, and bade you urge me to my Despair?
It was the spirit of this Demon which filled your breast, and gave words
to your tongue. Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre found an instrument for
his purposes in you—your eyes, your tones, the very pressure of this
hand translated his infernal design into the semblance of virtue and courage,
and with a broken vow upon my soul, I crossed the fatal threshold,
and flung my soul into his Power. Had I not covered myself with
perjury he could have had no power to move me. But as it was, I had
already proved his words, and decided my destiny before I saw his corpse-like
Face. It was the perjury that wrecked my soul. And, now what
canst thou give me in recompense for the guilt of that Broken vow?
Thou art very beautiful—yes, thou art like Eola! `Never did the eye of
the Sensualist rest upon a more voluptuous shape—never did the gaze of
the Devotee linger upon a face more hallowed by calm and spiritual
beauty.' And yet, were the Universe thine to bestow, thou couldst repay
me for the guilt of that Broken vow!”

And as the words fell from his lips, the music from without came in
merry peals through the curtained window, filling the chamber with its
bounding echoes.

The Wizard's daughter smiled, and quietly surrendered her hand to the

[figure description] Page 506.[end figure description]

nervous grasp of Paul Ardenheim. The ivory line gleamed through her
parted lips; her eyes were full of latent mirth.

“Did it never occur to you, Paul, that the woman who loves you, was
no real form of flesh and blood, but a misty creation of the Demon's skill?
A spirit sent by Ranulph to win you to despair? A beautiful Demon
placed in your path, by Ranulph's power, and armed with the fascination
that bewilders only to destroy?”

She spoke laughingly, but Paul's forehead grew dark at her words.

He dropped her hands, and retreated from her gaze, while his eyes were
chained to her face.

“Eola!” he muttered, with a vacant eye.

“Let me frame another supposition,” she spoke again, but her face was
sad, her voice deep and thrilling: “You are surrounded by the arts of a
Demon, who has lived three hundred years, and who cannot die until he
has plunged you into a vortex of unnatural crimes. Tell this to the people
of the every-day world, and they will laugh at you for a madman. I
will believe it; yes, I will receive the Revelations of the Sealed Chamber
as common-place truth. But where will you find this demon? In the
form of the Woman who loves you, or in the shrunken figure of that Old
Man, who has stolen you away from the halls of your fathers,—buried
you in the shades of Wissahikon—surrounded you with incredible temptations—
poisoned your very blood with suspicion and madness?”

Paul gazed upon her in blank amazement—

“Of whom do you speak?” he cried.

“Do you not guess my meaning? Of the aged man, whom you call,
Father!” she whispered and clasped his hand. There was persuasion in
her tone, a calm, deep conviction in her eyes.

“My father!” Paul drew his hand from her grasp, and his face was
stamped with unmingled horror. “Beware!” he whispered—“You blaspheme
the Dead.”

“Ah, he is dead, then? He has disappeared—” her lip curled, and
her eye flashed with the very laughter of scorn: “Disappeared! First,
your Sister dies; sacrificed to his relentless vengeance, and then he—
disappears! And, Paul Ardenheim, who was driven forth from Wissahikon,
like a felon two years and more ago, comes back again to weep by
his Sister's grave, and mourn forsooth at the disappearance of the Demon
who had deprived him of rank and power—of race and Name—and
planted in his heart the fear of Parricide. Man! You are unworthy of
your Destiny, for you have yielded yourself a willing victim to the very
Demon whom you abhor, and—it is enough to bring a smile to a cheek
of marble—you have called this Demon by the name of—`Father!”

“Woman! You blaspheme the dead!” cried Paul in a voice hoarse
with agony, and yet her words penetrated his soul, and overwhelmed with
a Conviction which he could neither banish nor confute.

[figure description] Page 507.[end figure description]

“I will not, I dare not think it!” he cried, wringing his hands in very
frenzy, as a flood of memories, swept over him, bewildering every faculty,
with their confused voices: “My father and Ranulph of Mount Sepulchre
the same? No—no—by the salvation of my immortal soul—no!
It is false, it is blasphemous—”

His voice rising with all the emphasis of despair, mingled with the melody,
which burst gay and thrilling through the curtained window.

He buried his face in his hands for a moment, and then started toward
the mirror with outstretched arms and distorted features:

“Away!” he gasped—“Thou art the Demon. Thy voice whispered
ruin. Thine eyes looked Death into my soul. Thy very presence breathes
Evil—Remorse—Despair! My father is dead; my sister sleeps the untroubled
slumber of the grave, and I am left alone upon the earth, but
left to work out a solemn duty, which permits no communion with the
passions or hatreds of mankind. Away—I hate thee!”

His hands grasped the mirror, as he sought madly for the secret spring,
while his face was turned over his shoulder.

“Hate thee! Dost read it in my eyes? 'Twas a Woman base and
beautiful as thee, who wrecked the life of Ranulph, and bartered his eternal
despair, for the brutal appetite of his Brother! Away! Thou art Eola!”

And he sought for the secret spring with trembling hands.

The beautiful woman, glided calmly to his side. She did not reply to
his reproaches, nor return him scorn for scorn. Her eyes were downcast;
her face and bosom hidden in the folds of her luxuriant hair.

“You will leave me, Paul,” she whispered, extending her hands—
“Behold! The door is open. Your way is free. And yet—” there was
a tremor in her voice—“I would not part in anger.”

Her hand had touched his own, as it sought for the secret spring. She
was by his side; the hair which shadowed her face, waved against his
breast, swayed by the breeze which came through the opened door, and
gave him a glimpse of her faultless throat, and one white gleam of her
panting bosom. He could not see her face; it was lost in shadow. But
a tear glittered upon that gleam of the snowy breast, and he heard her
voice die away in an inarticulate murmur.

Paul began to tremble; he was ice and flame by turns; his foot was on
the threshold, yet he lingered one moment, ere he left her Presence and
went forth into the silence and shadow of Night.

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