wer these questions. Was it--could it be--no--_love_, that I felt
for her? No! it was not that; at least, if it was, it was not like other
men's love. It was a feeling far purer, far loftier than falls to the
lot of ordinary men's experience. I thought that the world did
not--never did, nor ever could contain another Maud. She was different
to the rest of her kind. _Her_ beauty, _her_ talents, _her_ beautiful
nature, could never excite in me such a vulgar passion as that which the
world calls love. The thought never entered my head to make her my own,
and I was content to worship her at a distance.

I began to wonder to myself if Maud could be aware of the strong
impression she had made upon me. I even dared to hope, though humbly,
very humbly, she might not _quite_ have forgotten _me_; that there was
still a spare corner in her memory--I had nearly said _heart_--left
vacant in which I might crave a home.

Did she, perhaps--here an electric shock ran through me at the very
thought--did she feel for me _exactly_ in the same way as I felt for
her? Oh, rapture! and I tried to persuade myself that she did, for the
thought comforted me.

"Ah, Maud, Maud," I muttered to myself, in the midst of my reverie.

At that moment I heard the door handle move.

"Confound that box-keeper," muttered I. "What can he want, coming to
disturb my meditation?"

The door opened, and I turned my head to see who it was. Gentlemen, will
you believe it? It was Maud, again dressed exactly the same as before. I
started, and my blood ran cold, my hair stood on end, my teeth
chattered, and my knees knocked together. I essayed to speak, but my
tongue refused to give utterance to what I wished to say. I was then in
the presence, nay close to, a supernatural essence bearing the
lineaments of Maud, whose body I knew for certain to be at her country
seat, nearly a hundred miles away.

The figure gave me a friendly look of recognition, and seated itself. I
fancied it offered me its hand, but I was too dumbfounded to accept it,
and remained stupefied. At length this excessive feeling of terror began
to wear off, and I ventured to say, in a low tone, broken with emotion,
"Maud, is it really you? Speak."

"William," said a voice proceeding from the lips of the figure, but
which sounded as if it came from a long way off, "William!"

And there was the deepest pathos in the tone. It was the first time I
had been called thus by Maud. When she was in the b