f her terrible maledictions, and no words of
mine can convey how terrible they were, ran round the walls and died
away in little echoes, and the fierce light and deep gloom alternated
themselves on the white and dreadful form stretched upon that bier of
stone.

But at length she seemed to wear herself out and cease. She sat herself
down upon the rocky floor, shook the dense cloud of her beautiful hair
over her face and breast, and began to sob terribly in the torture of a
heartrending despair.

"Two thousand years," she moaned--"two thousand years have I wanted and
endured; but though century doth still creep on to century, and time
give place to time, the sting of memory hath not lessened, the light of
hope doth not shine more bright. Oh! to have lived two thousand years,
with all my passion eating out my heart, and with my sin ever before me.
Oh, that for me life cannot bring forgetfulness! Oh, for the weary years
that have been and are yet to come, and evermore to come, endless and
without end!

"My love! my love! my love! Why did that stranger bring thee back to me
after this sort? For five hundred years I have not suffered thus. Oh,
if I sinned against thee, have I not wiped away the sin? When wilt thou
come back to me who have all, and yet without thee have naught? What is
there that I can do? What? What? What? And perchance she--perchance that
Egyptian doth abide with thee where thou art, and mock my memory. Oh,
why could I not die with thee, I who slew thee? Alas, that I cannot die!
Alas! Alas!" and she flung herself prone upon the ground, and sobbed and
wept till I thought her heart must burst.

Suddenly she ceased, raised herself to her feet, rearranged her robe,
and, tossing back her long locks impatiently, swept across to where the
figure lay upon the stone.

"Oh Kallikrates," she cried, and I trembled at the name, "I must look
upon thy face again, though it be agony. It is a generation since
I looked upon thee whom I slew--slew with mine own hand," and with
trembling fingers she seized the corner of the sheet-like wrapping that
covered the form upon the stone bier, and then paused. When she spoke
again, it was in a kind of awed whisper, as though her idea were
terrible even to herself.

"Shall I raise thee," she said, apparently addressing the corpse, "so
that thou standest there before me, as of old? I _can_ do it," and she
held out her hands over the sheeted dead, while her whole frame became
rigi