my lips like an involuntary refrain. Oh,
brother, meditate well on this! Through having but once lifted my eyes
to look upon a woman, through one fault apparently so venial, I have for
years remained a victim to the most miserable agonies, and the happiness
of my life has been destroyed for ever.

I will not longer dwell upon those defeats, or on those inward victories
invariably followed by yet more terrible falls, but will at once proceed
to the facts of my story. One night my door-bell was long and violently
rung. The aged housekeeper arose and opened to the stranger, and the
figure of a man, whose complexion was deeply bronzed, and who was richly
clad in a foreign costume, with a poniard at his girdle, appeared under
the rays of Barbara's lantern. Her first impulse was one of terror, but
the stranger reassured her, and stated that he desired to see me at once
on matters relating to my holy calling. Barbara invited him upstairs,
where I was on the point of retiring. The stranger told me that his
mistress, a very noble lady, was lying at the point of death, and
desired to see a priest. I replied that I was prepared to follow him,
took with me the sacred articles necessary for extreme unction, and
descended in all haste. Two horses black as the night itself stood
without the gate, pawing the ground with impatience, and veiling their
chests with long streams of smoky vapour exhaled from their nostrils. He
held the stirrup and aided me to mount upon one; then, merely laying his
hand upon the pommel of the saddle, he vaulted on the other, pressed
the animal's sides with his knees, and loosened rein. The horse bounded
forward with the velocity of an arrow. Mine, of which the stranger held
the bridle, also started off at a swift gallop, keeping up with his
companion. We devoured the road. The ground flowed backward beneath us
in a long streaked line of pale gray, and the black silhouettes of
the trees seemed fleeing by us on either side like an army in rout. We
passed through a forest so profoundly gloomy that I felt my flesh creep
in the chill darkness with superstitious fear. The showers of bright
sparks which flew from the stony road under the ironshod feet of our
horses remained glowing in our wake like a fiery trail; and had any one
at that hour of the night beheld us both--my guide and myself--he must
have taken us for two spectres riding upon nightmares. Witch-fires ever
and anon flitted across the road before us, and