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When Paul awoke again, the luxurious chamber had passed away. He
found himself alone, in the silence and shadow of Night. His form was
prostrate; his brow was pressed against the damp grass. He raised himself
and looked around, and endeavored to collect his shattered senses.
There was blood upon his forehead; a sharp pain smote his very brain.
He was in the shrubbery, near the secret door. This much he knew.
But how had he come hither? Why this mark of blood upon his brow?
The form of the Wizard's Daughter, clinging to the neck of Reginald—
was that only the remembrance of a dream?

And through the shrubbery which shut him in, came fitful and broken
rays of festival light, and the murmur of music—music pealing within
solid walls—came faintly to his ear.

“Where am I?” he muttered, and placed his hand against his bleeding
brow. “Ah—it was all a dream. I knew that I would awake at last.
Yet it seems to me, that I heard Reginald call her by the name of Leola.
And that I saw her clinging to the neck of Reginald. A troubled dream—
nothing more!”

A burst of music, mingled with the hum of merry voices, rushed upon
his ear: and at the same moment, a form emerged from the shadows and
drew near his side, and by a ray of broken light, he saw the pale visage
of Rolof Sener. A memory smote the heart of Paul, that he had seen
that Face before. But where?

“The Bride has gone to her chamber,” said a voice, singular in its
sweetness, “And now the young Husband goes to claim his Purchase.
Do you hear the shouts of the marriage guests? Leola is young and
beautiful—and married. Or is Sold the word? And the Rich Man who
bought her—do you remember how an hour ago, he smote you on the
forehead,—aye, smote the very scar you received in his cause? How he
thrust you from the chamber, and flung you, bleeding and insensible, upon
this sod? Reginald, your friend, did this—an hour ago—and now he
goes to claim his Purchase. His footstep is on the threshold—Leola
in the Bridal couch awaits him.”

And Paul Ardenheim felt something pressed into his grasp by the
speaker; he clutched it, and raised it until it met a fitful ray; it was a
dagger, with a hilt of iron, and a long blade sharp and glittering.

“That door leads to her chamber,” whispered Rolof Sener; and Paul
Ardenheim, without a word, went through the narrow door into the darkness
of the secret chamber, the iron-hilted dagger in his grasp.

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As he disappeared, the withered frame of Isaac Van Behme—or Sir
Ralph Wyttonhurst, as you will—crept from the bushes, and glided to
Rolof Sener's side, and then sank trembling and prostrate at Rolof Sener's
feet. His pallid face, seen by the wandering rays, was stamped with awe—
his hands were clasped, as if in the act of worship — he gazed into
the face of Rolof Sener, and murmured.—“Satan!”

“Have no fear,” said the sweet voice of Rolof Sener, “Paul Ardenheim
is mine, and Paul Ardenheim is gone to bring the precious blood for
which thou dost seek.”

Up the dark stairway, dagger in hand, went Paul Ardenheim, and
pressed the spring of the secret door, but in vain. It did not move at his
touch; the mirror was fastened in its place. Then Paul, in the darkness,
laid his hand upon his bleeding hrow, and thrust that hand within his
garment, and felt the fragment of the Broken Coin. Then, as if every
relenting pulse had turned to ice, he pressed his weight against the door;
it yielded without a sound—and he crossed the threshold of Leola's
chamber.

A solitary lamp was burning there, and its rays left the statues and the
pictures in twilight shadow, while the Bridal Bed, its white curtains drawn
together, gleamed distinctly on his sight—and from those snowy folds, the
sound of murmuring voices met his ear. Leola in the arms of Reginald—
Leola in the embrace of the Rich Man, who had bought her with his gold!
Yes, her white robe appeared in the interval of the curtains; her form was
dimly discernible through their folds; she was standing beside the bed,
bending over it, and with an arm around her snowy neck.

Paul stood on the threshold—glanced around for an instant—crossed
the chamber with noiseless steps, and over Leola's shoulder, struck his
dagger into the breast of Reginald, even as he reclined upon the couch.
And then Leola turned to look upon him, and Paul, tearing the curtains
with his frenzied hands, rushed forward, eager to catch the last look of the
dying man. It was too dim; he could not see; he heard Leola's half-uttered
shriek, but the face and the visage of the Dying was lost in the
shadow.

Then, suddenly a burst of warm radiance filled the place—Paul turned,
and by the glad light which gushed through the doorway of the chamber,
saw Leola and Reginald encircled by the marriage guests. And at the
same time, from the secret door appeared the face of Isaac Van Behme,—
quivering with an infernal desire—while Rolof Sener calm and smiling,
stepped into the room with folded arms.

Paul turned to the Bed once more, and saw the prostrate form, and knew
the ashen face. It was His Father. But this Woman by the bed-side,
whose golden hair waves aside from a face, serenely beautiful, with its
eyes of clear, deep blue, lighted by an Angel's love? It is Catherine.

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The sister by the bed gazing into his face, while the Father stricken by
his hand, writhed his last agony!

She took him by the hand—his Sister—and pointed to the quivering
features of the old man. “He dies, Paul—” she said—yes—he heard
her voice and lived—“But not by your hand. Look! The knife is
buried in the pillow. As you struck, I raised my hand, scarce knowing
why, and turned aside the deadly aim. Away, Paul; this is no time for
explanations; no time for thought. Away—let not your footsteps pause
until you stand within our Home once more. To the Block-House, Paul,
and when you have rescued the Deliverer, and looked upon your true
Destiny, then I, Catherine, your Sister, will tell you all.”

Paul heard her voice, and looked into her eyes, and drank the God-born
Thought, which gave them light. For a moment he lingered to press his
Sister's hand to his lips,—even as a Catholic might the marble hand of a
sculptured Mary, mother of the Lord—and then with an agitated countenance,
but with eyes radiant with a holy Resolve, he turned away, and
passed through the door, passed between the forms of Leola and Reginald—
without a glance, without a word.

The rest of the events of that night—are they not written in the
chronicles of Mount Sepulchre? Some day we will again take up the
Record, and from the mysterious cyphers translate the history of Paul;
Leola; Reginald: of Madeline and Gilbert, and of the dread Ranulph,
whose corpse-like visage, Paul beheld in the shadows of the Sealed
Chamber. But now, we linger only for a parting word—

As Paul crossed the threshold, Rolof Sener rushed to the Bed,—saw
that the dagger was harmless—and then with a livid face approached
Reginald, even as Leola, pale and beautiful, hung on his arm:

“Behold the Son of Gaspard-Michael!” he cried and pointed to the retreating
form of Paul Ardenheim.

And Catherine kneeling by the bed, and pressing her Father's death
chilled hands within her own, lifted up her eyes and voice to Heaven,
and thanked the God of all life, that the Malice of Satan, his intricate
plans and infernal cunning, all had been brought to nothing, conquered
and crushed by the instinct of a Sister's Love.

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