abes and his deliverer had disappeared!

Hildebrand Wentworth had passed the remainder of that day in his own
chamber. It was a dark lone room, leading out of the turret we have
before described. Often had he ascended the narrow stair communicating
with the parapet, and often had he watched the dark woods beneath the
distant mountain. It was the road taken by his guilty emissaries; and,
whether on the look-out for signals or for their return, he repeated his
visits until the blue mists were gathering on the horizon, and
day--another day!--had passed into the bosom of eternity. It was an hour
of holiness and peace, but heavy and disturbed was the current of his
thoughts. He sat near a projecting angle of the turret, his head bent
over the parapet. A female voice was heard beneath, chanting
monotonously a low and melancholy psalm. Soon the following words were
distinguished:--

"Dark as the bounding waters
When storm clouds o'er them roll,
The face of Zion's daughters
Reveals the troubled soul."

Hildebrand drew his breath, as if labouring under some violent emotion.
His whole frame was agitated. His lip grew pale as she went on with a
voice of exultation--

"But joy is sown in sadness,
And hope with anxious fears;
Yon clouds shall break in gladness.
And doubts dissolve in tears."

Fiends increase their torments at the sight of heaven! Hildebrand threw
back his cloak,--with one clenched hand he struck his forehead, and with
a loud groan he rushed from the spot. He sought rest in the gloom and
solitude of his chamber; but hours passed on, during which the
conscience-stricken culprit endured the horrors of accumulated guilt.
Sometimes he opened the casement, gazing on the dark heavens, until he
thought they were peopled, and he held converse with unseen and terrible
things. Inarticulate murmurs broke from his lips. A few words might
occasionally be distinguished--"Murder!--An old man too--The
children--they are at rest!" A gleam of pleasure passed over his haggard
features.

"I am now"--looking round--"now master of all."

"All?" breathed a low voice in the chamber.

The cringing wretch was speechless. Sense almost forsook him: horror
fastened on his spirit, while he turned his eyes, as if by some
resistless constraint, towards the place from whence the voice had
issued. Near his couch was a curiously-wrought cabinet inlaid with ivory
and gems of the most costly workmansh