for centuries, or suggest it must be lady Arctura--that
she had got shut up there, like the bride in the chest? If he could but
find an old spring lock to put on the door! But people were so plaguy
sharp nowadays! They found out everything!--he could not afford to have
everything found out!--God himself must not be allowed to know
everything!

He stood staring. As he stood and stared, his mind began to change:
perhaps, after all, what he saw, might be! The whole thing it had
displaced must then be a fancy--a creation of the dreaming brain! God
in heaven! if it could but be proven that he had never done it! All the
other wicked things he was--or supposed himself guilty of--some of them
so heavy that it had never seemed of the smallest use to repent of
them--all the rest might be forgiven him!--But what difference would
that make to the fact that he had done them? He could never take his
place as a gentleman where all was known! They made such a fuss about a
sin or two, that a man went and did worse out of pure despair!

But if he had never murdered anybody! In that case he could almost
consent there should be a God! he could almost even thank him!--For
what! That he was not to be damned for the thing he had not done--a
thing he had had the misfortune to dream he had done--God never
interfering to protect him from the horrible fancy? What was the good
of a God that would not do that much for you--that left his creatures
to make fools of themselves, and only laughed at them!--Bah! There was
life in the old dog yet! If only he knew the thing for a fancy!

The music ceased, and the silence was a shock to him. Again he began to
stare about him. He looked up. Before him in the air hovered the pale
face of the girl he had--or had not murdered! It was one of his
visions--but not therefore more unreal than any other appearance: she
came from the world of his imagination--so real to him that in
expectant moods it was the world into which he was to step the moment
he left the body. She looked sweetly at him! She was come to forgive
his sins! Was it then true? Was there no sin of murder on his soul? Was
she there to assure him that he might yet hope for the world to come?
He stretched out his arms to her. She turned away. He thought she had
vanished. The next moment she was in the chapel, but he did not hear
her, and stood gazing up. She threw her arms around him. The contact of
the material startled him with such a revulsion, th