tterance.

"Mysterious creature," replied Theodore, "I would know who and what you
are!"

"My lips are forbidden to betray the secret," said the Veiled Lady.

"At whatever risk, I must discover it," rejoined Theodore.

"Then," said the Mystery, "there is no way save to lift my veil."

And Theodore, partly recovering his audacity, stept forward on the
instant, to do as the Veiled Lady had suggested. But she floated
backward to the opposite side of the room, as if the young man's breath
had possessed power enough to waft her away.

"Pause, one little instant," said the soft, low voice, "and learn the
conditions of what thou art so bold to undertake. Thou canst go hence,
and think of me no more; or, at thy option, thou canst lift this
mysterious veil, beneath which I am a sad and lonely prisoner, in a
bondage which is worse to me than death. But, before raising it, I
entreat thee, in all maiden modesty, to bend forward and impress a kiss
where my breath stirs the veil; and my virgin lips shall come forward
to meet thy lips; and from that instant, Theodore, thou shalt be mine,
and I thine, with never more a veil between us. And all the felicity
of earth and of the future world shall be thine and mine together. So
much may a maiden say behind the veil. If thou shrinkest from this,
there is yet another way." "And what is that?" asked Theodore. "Dost
thou hesitate," said the Veiled Lady, "to pledge thyself to me, by
meeting these lips of mine, while the veil yet hides my face? Has not
thy heart recognized me? Dost thou come hither, not in holy faith, nor
with a pure and generous purpose, but in scornful scepticism and idle
curiosity? Still, thou mayest lift the veil! But, from that instant,
Theodore, I am doomed to be thy evil fate; nor wilt thou ever taste
another breath of happiness!"

There was a shade of inexpressible sadness in the utterance of these
last words. But Theodore, whose natural tendency was towards
scepticism, felt himself almost injured and insulted by the Veiled
Lady's proposal that he should pledge himself, for life and eternity,
to so questionable a creature as herself; or even that she should
suggest an inconsequential kiss, taking into view the probability that
her face was none of the most bewitching. A delightful idea, truly,
that he should salute the lips of a dead girl, or the jaws of a
skeleton, or the grinning cavity of a monster's mouth! Even should she
prove a comely maiden