the road. Every limb
now ached, and his brain still felt the stupefying effects of his
late swoon. It was only with extreme difficulty that he could drag
himself along; yet such was the horror on his mind that he despised
the pain, and hurried down the road rapidly, seeking only to escape
as soon as possible out from among the shadows of these dark and
terrible woods, and into the open plain. His hasty, hurried steps
were attended with the severest pain, yet he sped onward, and, at
last, after what seemed to him an interminable time, he emerged out
of the shadows of the forest into the broad, bright moonlight of the
meadows which skirt the Arno. Hurrying along for a few hundred yards,
he sank down at last by the roadside, completely exhausted. In about
an hour he resumed his journey, and then sank exhausted once more,
after traversing a few miles. It was sunrise before he readied the
inn where he stopped. All that day and the next night he lay in bed.
On the following day he went to Florence; and, taking the hour when
he knew that Lord Chetwynde was out, he called on Hilda.

He had not been there or seen her since that visit which he had paid
on his first arrival at Florence from England. He had firmly resolved
not to see her until he had done something of some consequence, and
by this resolution he intended that he should go to her as the
triumphant discoverer of the mystery which she sought to unravel.
Something had, indeed, been done, but the dark mystery lay still
unrevealed; and what he had discovered was certainly important, yet
not of such a kind as could excite any thing like a feeling of
triumph. He went to her now because he could not help it, and went in
bitterness and humiliation. That he should go at all under such
circumstances only showed how complete and utter had been his
discomfiture. But yet, in spite of this, there had been no cowardice
of which he could accuse himself, and he had shrunk from no danger.
He had dared Lord Chetwynde almost face to face. Flying from him, he
had encountered one whom he might never have anticipated meeting.
Last of all, he had been overpowered by the phantom of the dead. All
these were sufficient causes for an interview with Hilda, if it were
only for the sake of letting her know the fearful obstacles that were
accumulating before her, the alliance of her worst enemies, and the
reappearance of the spectre.

As Hilda entered the room and looked at him, she was startled a