een
us--grant, when at last purified and regenerate, and fitted for the
transport of such reunion--grant that we may meet once more! And for his
child,--it kneels to Thee from the dungeon floor! To-morrow, and whose
breast shall cradle it; whose hand shall feed; whose lips shall pray for
its weal below and its soul hereafter!" She paused,--her voice choked
with sobs.

"Thou Viola!--thou, thyself. He whom thou hast deserted is here to
preserve the mother to the child!"

She started!--those accents, tremulous as her own! She started to
her feet!--he was there,--in all the pride of his unwaning youth and
superhuman beauty; there, in the house of dread, and in the hour of
travail; there, image and personation of the love that can pierce the
Valley of the Shadow, and can glide, the unscathed wanderer from the
heaven, through the roaring abyss of hell!

With a cry never, perhaps, heard before in that gloomy vault,--a cry of
delight and rapture, she sprang forward, and fell at his feet.

He bent down to raise her; but she slid from his arms. He called her by
the familiar epithets of the old endearment, and she only answered him
by sobs. Wildly, passionately, she kissed his hands, the hem of his
garment, but voice was gone.

"Look up, look up!--I am here,--I am here to save thee! Wilt thou deny
to me thy sweet face? Truant, wouldst thou fly me still?"

"Fly thee!" she said, at last, and in a broken voice; "oh, if
my thoughts wronged thee,--oh, if my dream, that awful dream,
deceived,--kneel down with me, and pray for our child!" Then springing
to her feet with a sudden impulse, she caught up the infant, and,
placing it in his arms, sobbed forth, with deprecating and humble tones,
"Not for my sake,--not for mine, did I abandon thee, but--"

"Hush!" said Zanoni; "I know all the thoughts that thy confused and
struggling senses can scarcely analyse themselves. And see how, with a
look, thy child answers them!"

And in truth the face of that strange infant seemed radiant with its
silent and unfathomable joy. It seemed as if it recognised the father;
it clung--it forced itself to his breast, and there, nestling, turned
its bright, clear eyes upon Viola, and smiled.

"Pray for my child!" said Zanoni, mournfully. "The thoughts of souls
that would aspire as mine are All PRAYER!" And, seating himself by her
side, he began to reveal to her some of the holier secrets of his lofty
being. He spoke of the sublime and intense faith