a consciousness of his real situation-of how he came thither and how had come to pass the astounding events of the evening. He forgot all his harrowing suspicions of inquisitorial diablerie; he thought no more of the possibility that his frantic feats were the subject of suppressed laughter to invisible powers! Everything merged into his intense consciousness of present pleasure. He yielded to the irresistible impulse of his feelings, blind and indifferent to consequences.

""Tis all owing to the wine I drank in the supper room!" thought Carl; but, alas, how little did he know of the important events with which he had got extraordinarily implicated; of the principle and subtle influence which was at work preparing for him scenes of future change and suffering!

A few minutes' time beheld Carl pacing slowly up and down the spacious chamber, supporting his beautiful and mysterious companion, watching with ecstasy her graceful motions, and pouring into her ear the impassioned accents of love; not, however, without an occasional flightiness of manner, which he could neither check nor disguise. When he listened to the dulcet melody of her voice, which fell on his ear like the breathings of an Æolian harp; when he observed her dovelike eyes fixed fondly upon him; and felt the faint throbbings of her heart against the hand that supported her, he almost lost all consciousness of treading among the lower realities of life.

While Carl was thus delightfully occupied, his companion suddenly turned aside her head, and to Carl's amazement and alarm, burst into a flood of tears. Burying her face in the folds of her veil, she began to weep bitterly. "For mercy's sake, dear lady, tell me what ails you?" inquired the startled student, He repeated his question; but in vain. His reiterated questions called forth no other answer than sobs and tears.

"Lady! dear, beloved lady, why are you bent on breaking my heart ? Have I then so soon

worthy in your eyes?" again inquired Carl, a little relaxing the arm that supported her, as though grieved and mortified at her reserve.

"Oh, Carl, Carl! Indeed you are most worthy of my love, of all my confidence; but you cannot help me! No, no, I am undone! Lost, lost, lost for ever!" replied the lady, in heart-breaking accents.

Carl begged, entreated, implored, to be made acquainted with the cause of her agitation, but in vain. His thoughts (alas, what is man?) began to travel rapidly from "beauty in tears" to "beauty in sullens ;" and commiseration was freezing fast into something like anger, or rather contempt.

"Lady, if you think me thus unworthy to share your grief, to be apprized of its source, that so I may acquit myself, I—I-I cannot stay to see you in sufferings I may not alleviate! I must-yes, I must leave you, lady, if it even break my heart!" said Carl, with as much firmness as he could muster. She turned towards him an eye that instantly melted away all his displeasure-a soft blue eye glistening through the dews of sorrow, and swooned in his arms.

Was ever mortal so situated as Carl, at that agitating moment? Inexpressibly shocked, he bore his lovely but insensible burden to the window; and thinking fresh air might revive her, he carried her through the door, which opened on the narrow terrace as before mentioned. While supporting her in his arms, and against his shaking knees, and parting her luxuriant hair from her damp forehead, he unconsciously dropped a tear upon her pallid features. She revived. She smiled with sad sweetness on her agitated supporter, with slowly returning consciousness, and passed her soft fingers gently over his forehead. As soon as Ker strength returned, Carl led her gently a few paces -to and fro on the terrace, thinking the exercise might fully restore her. The terrace overlooked, at a height ́of about sixty feet, an extensive and beautifully disposed garden; and both Carl and his mysterious com

panion paused a few moments to view a fountain underneath, which threw out its clear waters in the moonlight, like sparkling showers of crystal. How tranquil and beautiful was all before them! While Carl's eye was passing rapidly over the various objects before him, he perceived his companion suddenly start. Concern and agitation were again visible in her features. She seemed on the point of bursting a second time into tears, when Carl, once more, with affectionate earnestness, besought her to keep him no longer in torturing suspense, but acquaint him with the source of her sorrow.

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Lady, once more I implore you to tell me whence all this agony?" She eyed him steadfastly and mournfully, and replied, "A loss, dear Carl-a fearful—an irreparable loss."

"In the name of mercy, lady, what loss can merit such dreadful names?" inquired the student, shocked at the solemnity of her manner, and the ashy hue her countenance had assumed. She trembled, and continued silent. Carl's eyes were more eloquent than his lips. Seeing them fixed on her with intense curiosity and excitement, she proceeded:

"It is a loss, Carl, the effects of which scarce befits mortal lips to tell. It were little to say, that unless it be recovered, a crowned head must be brought low !" She shuddered from head to foot. Carl's blood began to trickle coldly through his veins, and he stood gazing at his companion with terrified anxiety.

"Carl!" continued the lady, in a scarcely audible murmur, "I have been told to-day-how shall I breathe it! by one from the grave, that you were destined to restore to me what I have lost-that you were Heaven's chosen instrument-that you alone, of other men, had rightly studied the laws of spiritual being-could command the services of EVIL SPIRITS," she continued, fixing a startling glance on Carl, who quailed under it.

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Lady, pardon me for saying it is false, if it has

as the lips of Satan! I know naught of spirits-naught of hereafter, but through the blessed Bible," replied Carl, in hurried accents, a cold perspiration suddenly bedewing him from head to foot." His feelings began to revolt-to recoil from his companion-whom he could not help suddenly likening to the beautiful serpent that beguiled Eve; but she twined her arms closely around him, and almost groaned in heart-moving accents, "Oh, Carl, Carl! that I might but tell you what I have heard of you, or rather what I KNOW of you!"

There had been something very terrible in her demeanour, latterly. She seemed speaking as if of set purpose, and her eye was ever alive, probing Carl's soul to see the effect of what she uttered. At least so Carl thought. All his apprehensions about the hideous Inquisition revived, and with tenfold force. Was this subtle and beautiful being one of THEIR creatures? A fiend, cunningly tutored to extract his soul's secret, and then betray him into the fiery grasp of torture and death?

It was long before he could speak to her. At length he exclaimed, "For mercy's sake, lady, tell me what frightful meaning lurks beneath what you say? What is your loss? What do you know, or have heard of ME? Tell me, though I should expire with terror !"

"Can you then bear a secret to the grave, unspoken?" she inquired, gazing at him with an expression of melancholy and mysterious awe.

"Did Thurialma appear again ?”

The student turned ghastly pale, and almost dropped her from his arms.

"I know not what your words mean," stammered Carl, almost swooning. His companion's eye was fixed on him with wellnigh petrifying effect.

"Carl," said she, in a low tone, "I am about to tell There the source of my sorrows-that is, my loss. you is none near to overhear us?" she inquired, faintly, without removing her eyes from Carl's.

"None! none !" murmured the student, a mist clouding his eyes; for, at the moment of his companion's uttering the words last mentioned, he had distinctly seen a human face peering over the edge of the terrace. He shook like an aspen leaf, shivering under the midnight wind.

"What have you lost?" he inquired.

"The fellow to THIS," replied the lady, drawing off the glove from her left hand, and disclosing a bracelet the very counterpart of that in Carl's possession. His brain reeled; he felt choked.

"What-what of him-that-hath its fellow?" he faltered, sinking on one knee, unable to sustain the burden of his companion.

"He is either a sorcerer, a prince, or a murderer !" replied the lady, in a hollow broken tone.

Carl slowly bared his shaking arm, and disclosed the bracelet gleaming on his wrist. He felt that in another moment he must sink senseless to the earth; but the lady, after glaring at the bracelet, with a halfsuppressed shriek, and an expanding eye of glassy horror, suddenly sprung from him, and fell headlong over the terrace, at the very edge of which they had been standing.

"Ha-accursed, damned traitor!" yelled a voice close behind him, followed by a peal of hideous laughter. He turned staggeringly towards the quarter from which the sounds came, and beheld the old man who had given him the bracelet, and now stood close at his elbow, glaring at him with the eye of a demon, his hands stretched out, his fingers curved like the cruel claws of a tiger, and his feet planted in the earth as if with convulsive effort.

"Thrice accursed wretch!" repeated the old man, in a voice of thunder; "what have you done? Did not her highness tell you who you were ?"

"Tell me!-what?"

The old man suddenly clasped Carl by the wrist

covered with the bracelet • his fantumas Liloand with