dressed in white, the face was white, and round that
face there were gathered great masses of dark hair. To his disordered
senses it seemed at that moment as if this figure glided along the
ground.

Filled with a kind of horror, he raised himself up, one hand still
grasping the pistol, while the other clutched a tree in front of him
with a convulsive grasp, his eyes fixed on this figure. Something in
its outline served to create all this new fear that had arisen, and
fascinated his gaze. To his excited sensibility, now rendered morbid
by the terrors of the last few hours, this figure, with its white
robes, seemed like something supernatural sent across his path. It
was dim twilight, and the object was a little indistinct; yet he
could see it sufficiently well. There was that about it which sent an
awful suspicion over him. All that Hilda had told him recurred to his
mind.

And now, just as the figure was passing, and while his eyes were
riveted on it, the face slowly and solemnly turned toward him.

At the sight of the face which was thus presented there passed
through him a sudden pang of unendurable anguish--a spasm of terror
so intolerable that it might make one die on the spot. For a moment
only he saw that face. The next moment it had turned away. The figure
passed on. Yet in that moment he had seen the face fully and
perfectly. He had recognized it! He knew it as the face of one who
now lay far down beneath the depths of the sea--of one whom he had
betrayed--whom he had done to death! This was the face which now, in
all the pallor of the grave, was turned toward him, and seemed to
change him to stone as he gazed.

The figure passed on--the figure of Zillah--to this
conscience-stricken wretch a phantom of the dead; and he, overwhelmed
by this new horror, sank back into insensibility.

CHAPTER LXIX.

THE VISION OF THE LOST.

It was twilight when Gualtier sank back senseless. When he at last
came to himself it was night. The moon was shining brightly, and the
wind was sighing through the pines solemnly and sadly. It was some
time before he could recall his scattered senses so as to understand
where he was. At last he remembered, and the gloom around him gave
additional force to the thrill of superstitious horror which was
excited by that remembrance. He roused himself with a wild effort,
and hunted in the grass for his pistol, which now was his only
reliance. Finding this, he hurried down toward