completely failed. Eunice remained as still as a statue. To all
appearance, she had not even heard what had been said to her. Helena
looked at me, and touched her forehead with a significant smile. "Sad,
isn't it?" she said--and bowed, and went briskly away on her household
errand.

We were alone again.

Still, Eunice never moved. I spoke to her, and produced no impression.
Beginning to feel alarmed, I tried the effect of touching her. With
a wild cry, she started into a state of animation. Almost at the same
moment, she weakly swayed to and fro as if the pleasant breeze in the
garden moved her at its will, like the flowers. I held her up, and led
her to the seat.

"There is nothing to be afraid of," I said. "She has gone."

Eunice's eyes rested on me in vacant surprise. "How do you know?" she
asked. "I hear her; but I never see her. Do you see her?"

"My dear child! of what person are you speaking?"

She answered: "Of no person. I am speaking of a Voice that whispers and
tempts me, when Helena is near."

"What voice, Eunice?"

"The whispering Voice. It said to me, 'I am your mother;' it called
me Daughter when I first heard it. My father speaks of my mother, the
angel. That good spirit has never come to me from the better world. It
is a mock-mother who comes to me--some spirit of evil. Listen to this.
I was awake in my bed. In the dark I heard the mock-mother whispering,
close at my ear. Shall I tell you how she answered me, when I longed
for light to see her by, when I prayed to her to show herself to me? She
said: 'My face was hidden when I passed from life to death; my face no
mortal creature may see.' I have never seen her--how can _you_ have seen
her? But I heard her again, just now. She whispered to me when Helena
was standing there--where you are standing. She freezes the life in me.
Did she freeze the life in _you?_ Did you hear her tempting me? Don't
speak of it, if you did. Oh, not a word! not a word!"

A man who has governed a prison may say with Macbeth, "I have supped
full with horrors." Hardened as I was--or ought to have been--the effect
of what I had just heard turned me cold. If I had not known it to be
absolutely impossible, I might have believed that the crime and the
death of the murderess were known to Eunice, as being the crime and the
death of her mother, and that the horrid discovery had turned her brain.
This was simply impossible. What did it mean? Good God! what did it
mean?

My