departed slowly. A fresh breeze tempered the hot exhalations which
rose from the earth. A resplendent moon shone upon the landscape at the
moment when Fabian, having quitted the shadow of the forest, reached the
open space intervening between it and the wall inclosing the hacienda.

Until that moment he proceeded with a slow but firm step, but when,
through the silver vapours of the night, he perceived the white wall
with the breach in the centre partly visible, his pace slackened, and
his knees trembled under him.

Did he dread his approaching defeat? for his conscience told him already
that he would be vanquished--or was it rather those recollections which,
now so painfully recalled, rose up before him like the floods of the
sea?

There was a deep silence, and the night, but for a slight vapour, was
clear. All at once Fabian halted and stood still like the dismayed
traveller, who sees a phantom rise up in his path. A white and airy
form appeared distinctly visible above the breach in the old wall. It
resembled one of the fairies in the old legends of the north, which to
the eye of the Scandinavian idolaters floated amidst vapours and mists.
To the eye of Fabian it bore the angel form of his first and only love!

For one instant this lovely apparition appeared to Fabian to melt away;
but his eyes deceived him, for in spite of himself they were obscured.
The vision remained stationary. When he had strength to move, he
advanced nearer, and still the vision did not disappear.

The young man's heart felt as if it would burst, for at this moment a
horrible idea crossed his mind. He believed that what he saw was
Rosarita's spirit, and he would rather a thousand times have known her
living, though pitiless and disdainful, than behold her dead, though she
appeared in the form of a gentle and benignant apparition.

A voice, whose sweet accents fell upon his ear like heavenly music,
failed to dispel the illusion, though the voice spoke in human accents.

"Is it you, Tiburcio? I expected you."

Even the penetration of a spirit from the other world could not have
divined that he would return from such a distance.

"Is it you, Rosarita?" cried Fabian, in a scarcely perceptible voice,
"or a delusive vision which will quickly disappear?"

And Fabian stood motionless, fixed to the spot, so greatly did he fear
that the beloved image would vanish from his sight.

"It is I," said the voice; "I am indeed here."

"O G