wer was received. By the advice of
the clerk, I sent a second telegram to the London office, requesting an
explanation. The reply came back in these terms:

"Improvements in street. Houses pulled down. No trace of person named in
telegram."

I mounted my horse, and rode back slowly to the rectory.

"The day of his return to me will bring with it the darkest days of my
life."..... "I shall die young, and die miserably. Have you interest
enough still left in me to wish to hear of it?" .... "You _ shall_ hear
of it." Those words were in my memory while I rode home in the cloudless
moonlight night. They were so vividly present to me that I could hear
again her pretty foreign accent, her quiet clear tones, as she spoke
them. For the rest, the emotions of that memorable day had worn me out.
The answer from the telegraph office had struck me with a strange and
stony despair. My mind was a blank. I had no thoughts. I had no tears.

I was about half-way on my road home, and I had just heard the clock of
a village church strike ten, when I became conscious, little by little,
of a chilly sensation slowly creeping through and through me to the
bones. The warm, balmy air of a summer night was abroad. It was the
month of July. In the month of July, was it possible that any living
creature (in good health) could feel cold? It was _not_ possible--and
yet, the chilly sensation still crept through and through me to the
bones.

I looked up. I looked all round me.

My horse was walking along an open highroad. Neither trees nor waters
were near me. On either side, the flat fields stretched away bright and
broad in the moonlight.

I stopped my horse, and looked round me again.

Yes: I saw it. With my own eyes I saw it. A pillar of white
mist--between five and six feet high, as well as I could judge--was
moving beside me at the edge of the road, on my left hand. When I
stopped, the white mist stopped. When I went on, the white mist went on.
I pushed my horse to a trot--the pillar of mist was with me. I urged him
to a gallop---the pillar of mist was with me. I stopped him again--the
pillar of mist stood still.

The white color of it was the white color of the fog which I had seen
over the river--on the night when I had gone to bid her farewell. And
the chill which had then crept through me to the bones was the chill
that was creeping through me now.

I went on again slowly. The white mist went on again slowly--with the
clear brigh