lift the young girl, and carry her away.

"You cannot," said Philip, putting her gently aside, while she shrank
from his touch. Then he took Emilia in his arms and bore her to the
door, Hope preceding.

Motioning him to pause a moment, she turned the lock softly, and looked
out into the dark entry. All was still. She went out, and he followed
with his motionless burden. They walked stealthily, like guilty things,
yet every slight motion seemed to ring in their ears. It was chilly, and
Hope shivered. Through the great open window on the stairway a white fog
peered in at them, and the distant fog-whistle came faintly through; it
seemed as if the very atmosphere were condensing about them, to isolate
the house in which such deeds were done. The clock struck twelve, and it
seemed as if it struck a thousand.

When they reached Hope's door, she turned and put out her arms for
Emilia, as for a child. Every expression had now gone from Hope's face
but a sort of stony calmness, which put her infinitely farther from
Malbone than had the momentary struggle. As he gave the girlish form
into arms that shook and trembled beneath its weight, he caught a
glimpse in the pier-glass of their two white faces, and then, looking
down, saw the rose-tints yet lingering on Emilia's cheek. She, the
source of all this woe, looked the only representative of innocence
between two guilty things.

How white and pure and maidenly looked Hope's little room,--such a home
of peace, he thought, till its door suddenly opened to admit all this
passion and despair! There was a great sheaf of cardinal flowers on the
table, and their petals were drooping, as if reluctant to look on him.
Scheffer's Christus Consolator was upon the walls, and the benign figure
seemed to spread wider its arms of mercy, to take in a few sad hearts
more.

Hope bore Emilia into the light and purity and warmth, while Malbone was
shut out into the darkness and the chill. The only two things to which
he clung on earth, the two women between whom his unsteady heart had
vibrated, and both whose lives had been tortured by its vacillation,
went away from his sight together, the one victim bearing the other
victim in her arms. Never any more while he lived would either of them
be his again; and had Dante known it for his last glimpse of things
immortal when the two lovers floated away from him in their sad embrace,
he would have had no such sense of utter banishment as had Malbone then