to any cabalistical spells, been
present to her dreams.

She thought that it was broad noonday, and that she was sitting alone
in the house she then inhabited, and weeping bitterly. Of a sudden the
voice of Godolphin called to her; she ran eagerly forth, but no
sooner had she passed the threshold, than the scene so familiar to her
vanished, and she was alone in an immense and pathless wilderness; there
was no tree and no water in this desert; all was arid, solitary, and
inanimate. But what seemed most strange to her was that in the heavens,
although they were clear and bright, there was neither sun nor stars;
the light seemed settled and stagnant--there was in it no life.

And she thought that she continued to move involuntarily along the
waste; and that, ever and anon, she yearned and strove to rest, but her
limbs did not obey her will, and a power she could not control urged her
onward.

And now there was no longer an utter dumbness and death over the scene.
Forth from the sands, as from the bowels of the reluctant earth, there
crept, one by one, loathly and reptile shapes; obscene sounds rang
in her ears--now in a hideous mockery, now in a yet more sickening
solicitation. Shapes of terror thickened and crowded round her. She was
roused by dread into action; she hurried faster and faster; she strove
to escape; and ever as she fled, the sounds grew louder, and the
persecuting shapes more ghastly,--abominations which her pure mind
shuddered to behold, presented themselves at every turn: there was no
spot for refuge, no cave for concealment. Wearied and despairing, she
stopped short; but then the shapes and sounds seemed gradually to lose
their terror; her eye and ear became familiar to them; and what at first
seemed foes, grew into companions.

And now, again, the wilderness was gone; she stood in a strange spot,
and opposite, and gazing upon her with intent and mournful eyes, stood
Godolphin. But he seemed much older than he was, and the traces of care
were ploughed deeply on his countenance; and above them both hung a
motionless and livid cloud; and from the cloud a gigantic hand was
stretched forth, pointing with a shadowy and unmoving finger towards
a quarter of the earth which was enveloped in a thick gloom. While she
sought with straining eyes, to penetrate the darkness of the spot
thus fearfully marked out, she thought Godolphin vanished, and all was
suddenly and utter night--night, but not stillness--for the