rets of
his soul, his noble brow tells of fierce struggle within, but neither
prayer, sigh, nor groan escapes him. His lips are closely pressed
together, while suppressed anguish writhes them into a stern smile--but
the streams of ruby light which had shone on his face for the moment,
fade in the twilight, and he is lost in the gloom of the deepening
shadows.

* * * * *

But when the vows were all spoken, the ceremonies over, when the
bridegroom raised up the bride, and she fell into the arms of her
father, when he bore her onward to the gates of the church, with
thousands of tapers following after, when the crowd dispersed, and the
sounds of the footsteps were dying away in the distance, and the
cathedral grew still as the grave, holding only the dead and the few
half-living monks moving darkly in its depths--the man on whom had shone
the crimson light leaves the chapel, comes up the aisle, strikes his
breast, and falls forward on the steps of the altar, rises suddenly, and
again falls, then seats himself, while the lights from behind the great
crucifix of silver shine down solemnly upon him. His face is turned away
from the holy things of the sanctuary; his eyes gaze afar, past the
gates through which the bride had vanished. He sees the blue night-sky,
and a single star sparkling upon it, and as he looks upon the star, he
takes a sword from under his cloak, draws the steel from the scabbard,
and, still gazing upon the star, sharpens it on his whetstone. Thus,
with widely opened eye, yet seeing, hearing nothing, the somnambulist,
wrapped in deep, magnetic sleep, strides on in the moonlight, possessed
by a power of which he is not conscious, which may stain his hands with
blood, or hold him back from the verge of an abyss. Passion drinks its
glow from the rays of the sun; it may lead us safely, or drive us far
astray!

* * * * *

A monk approaches the man kneeling before the high altar, and says:

'Brother, whosoever thou mayst be, go to rest, and do not disturb the
peace of the Lord.'

The man answers nothing. Another draws near him, saying:

'Away from the church; be not guilty of sacrilege!'

The man makes no reply. A third monk stands beside him and says:

'I excommunicate thee, and the steel which thou darest to draw at the
very foot of the cross.'

The culprit then rises, and replies:

'I waited for these words, that the stroke might be ce