er pretences, and through
innumerable dangers, I have come hither, risking liberty, perhaps
life, if my name and career are known in Venice, to warn and save you.
Changed, you call me!--changed without; but what is that to the ravages
within? Be warned, be warned in time!"

The voice of Glyndon, sounding hollow and sepulchral, alarmed Viola even
more than his words. Pale, haggard, emaciated, he seemed almost as one
risen from the dead, to appall and awe her. "What," she said, at last,
in a faltering voice,--"what wild words do you utter! Can you--"

"Listen!" interrupted Glyndon, laying his hand upon her arm, and its
touch was as cold as death,--"listen! You have heard of the old stories
of men who have leagued themselves with devils for the attainment of
preternatural powers. Those stories are not fables. Such men live.
Their delight is to increase the unhallowed circle of wretches like
themselves. If their proselytes fail in the ordeal, the demon seizes
them, even in this life, as it hath seized me!--if they succeed, woe,
yea, a more lasting woe! There is another life, where no spells can
charm the evil one, or allay the torture. I have come from a scene where
blood flows in rivers,--where Death stands by the side of the bravest
and the highest, and the one monarch is the Guillotine; but all the
mortal perils with which men can be beset, are nothing to the dreariness
of the chamber where the Horror that passes death moves and stirs!"

It was then that Glyndon, with a cold and distinct precision, detailed,
as he had done to Adela, the initiation through which he had gone. He
described, in words that froze the blood of his listener, the appearance
of that formless phantom, with the eyes that seared the brain and
congealed the marrow of those who beheld. Once seen, it never
was to be exorcised. It came at its own will, prompting black
thoughts,--whispering strange temptations. Only in scenes of turbulent
excitement was it absent! Solitude, serenity, the struggling desires
after peace and virtue,--THESE were the elements it loved to haunt!
Bewildered, terror-stricken, the wild account confirmed by the dim
impressions that never, in the depth and confidence of affection, had
been closely examined, but rather banished as soon as felt,--that
the life and attributes of Zanoni were not like those of
mortals,--impressions which her own love had made her hitherto censure
as suspicions that wronged, and which, thus mitigated, h