n of the wood,
whither the indescribable figure had gone. Aminadab heard no more,
scarcely saw more, if it was not the corpse lying before him. He was
afraid of Janet, more of Fletcher, who might now at length come to pass
his eyes over the body in the Cradle, where he was to cherish her as a
father cherisheth his child; yet he would look, and look again. How
shrivelled that face of darkness, yet how calm and loving-like; as if,
even in the midst of the agony of the last hour, it smiled love to her
destroyer!

By-and-by a light again approached. It was Janet with a white sheet.

"You here! Good heavens! Away, away! Fletcher is to look at her; yes, he
is to look at her in the cradle he promised her. Away! no more."

"I saw Brahma," said Aminadab; "yes, true Brahma, Brahma!"

"Fool, fool! Man, I only told you it was Brahma to keep you from the
Cradle for your own safety."

"Then who was the strange being?"

"I dare not tell you that; but I fear Ady's away with him, without hat,
or cloak, or box, or supper."

"To where?"

"Nor that, lad. But I fear you will hear more of this Scotch tragedy
some day. Get you gone; there is Fletcher."

Aminadab obeyed.

And Fletcher did see her. Some time after the departure of Aminadab he
crossed the green. It seemed that night he had refrained from company,
not through penitence, or any motive that man could divine in the nature
of the man. Strangely-formed beings do things which do not seem to
belong to their natures or to human nature, and it is this that makes
them strange. Before he entered this, not, alas! Domdaniel, he called
Janet to the door. He wanted to be alone. She gave him the cruse; and
with the old gloom upon his face, perhaps he wanted to test his courage.
It could not be that he wanted to look once more on the face of the
mother of his children; nor that he felt now that there had been one in
the world who really did love him, as few women have ever loved. Then
man measures woman's love by his own; but when was man's heart stirred
by nature's strongest passion like that of devoted woman? while now the
world did not contain one heart that was moved to him by anything
stronger than dithyrambic delirium. Who knows? But there was Fletcher
looking on the corpse of his wife, and waving over her face the light of
the small cruse he held in his hand! Was he moved, as he saw the still,
death-bound features, that once could not contain the expression which
the leaping h