remainder of the way separately.
On the evening of the second day, the steamer which I had hired at
Palermo dropped anchor in the bay of Cruta, under the shadow of the
grim, black castle; and a small rowing-boat landed me beneath the
cliffs before night fell.

"'I made my way up the narrow, winding path alone, and passing across
the paved courtyard, rang the hoarse, brazen bell at the principal
entrance. A servant, bearing a torch, had opened the door, and was
beckoning me to follow him long before its echoes had died away.

"'"Mademoiselle Irene!" I asked him, in a hushed, anxious tone. "She
lives?"

"'"She lives!" he repeated sombrely.

"'I followed him along the wide stone corridors, and up countless
steps. At last he paused before a door, and after listening for a
moment, knocked softly at it.

"'It was opened by a monk, whose face was hidden by the folds of his
deep cowl. He motioned me to enter, and immediately closed the door.

"'I found myself in a spacious, lofty bedchamber, bare and dimly lit.
Facing me two pale, solemn-visaged monks stood on either side of a
drawn curtain, as though guarding the plain iron bed which lay beyond,
and towards which I had taken one impulsive step forward. Their
presence, and an indefinable gloom,--beyond even the gloom of a
chamber of death,--which in the dim twilight seemed to hang about the
very air of the place, chilled me. There was little furniture, and no
pictures hung upon the walls, save a wooden cross near the foot of the
bed, before which two candles were burning. I looked around for some
one to whom I could address myself, but there was no one beyond these
dark-coated, silent monks, who seemed more like shadows from another
world.

"'While I stood in the middle of the room, hesitating, the priest who
had admitted me passed by and took up his station at the foot of the
bed. He motioned me to stand a little nearer, and suddenly the
drear silence of the room was broken by the low, monotonous chant of
prayers. I bowed my head, and kneeling by the bedside I took up the
responses, and once for a moment clasped the white, cold hand which
lay upon the coverlet, and which was all that I could see of the woman
whom I was making my wife.

"'The ceremony seems to me now like some far-distant dream, of which I
retain only the vaguest recollection. When it was all over, I laid my
hand upon the curtain to draw it back, but the monk nearest to me held
my hand in a vise-like