carriages that our interest lies. Nor yet
wholly with the dead in her mysterious dream; but with Philip Wentworth.

The rattle of wheels had died out of the air when Philip opened his
eyes, bewildered, like a man abruptly roused from slumber. He raised
himself on one arm and stared into the surrounding blackness. Where was
he? In a second the truth flashed upon him. He had been left in the
tomb! While kneeling on the farther side of the stone box, perhaps he
had fainted, and in the last solemn rites his absence had been
unnoticed.

His first emotion was one of natural terror. But this passed as quickly
as it came. Life had ceased to be so very precious to him; and if it
were his fate to die at Julie's side, was not that the fulfilment of the
desire which he had expressed to himself a hundred times that morning?
What did it matter, a few years sooner or later? He must lay down the
burden at last. Why not then? A pang of self-reproach followed the
thought. Could he so lightly throw aside the love that had bent over his
cradle. The sacred name of mother rose involuntarily to his lips. Was it
not cowardly to yield up without a struggle the life which he should
guard for her sake? Was it not his duty to the living and the dead to
face the difficulties of his position, and overcome them if it were
within human power?

With an organization as delicate as a woman's, he had that spirit which,
however sluggish in repose, can leap with a kind of exultation to
measure its strength with disaster. The vague fear of the supernatural,
that would affect most men in a similar situation, found no room in his
heart. He was simply shut in a chamber from which it was necessary that
he should obtain release within a given period. That this chamber
contained the body of the woman he loved, so far from adding to the
terror of the case, was a circumstance from which he drew consolation.
She was a beautiful white statue now. Her soul was far hence; and if
that pure spirit could return, would it not be to shield him with her
love? It was impossible that the place should not engender some thought
of the kind. He did not put the thought entirely from him as he rose to
his feet and stretched out his hands in the darkness; but his mind was
too healthy and practical to indulge long in such speculations.

Philip chanced to have in his pocket a box of wax-tapers which smokers
use. After several ineffectual attempts, he succeeded in igniting one
agai