pale as his own, watching his countenance with such an expression of
agonised anxiety as I had never seen before. Clearly she did not know if
he would live or die. Five minutes slowly passed and I saw that she was
abandoning hope; her lovely oval face seemed to fall in and grow visibly
thinner beneath the pressure of a mental agony whose pencil drew black
lines about the hollows of her eyes. The coral faded even from her lips,
till they were as white as Leo's face, and quivered pitifully. It was
shocking to see her: even in my own grief I felt for hers.

"Is it too late?" I gasped.

She hid her face in her hands, and made no answer, and I too turned
away. But as I did so I heard a deep-drawn breath, and looking down
perceived a line of colour creeping up Leo's face, then another and
another, and then, wonder of wonders, the man we had thought dead turned
over on his side.

"Thou seest," I said in a whisper.

"I see," she answered hoarsely. "He is saved. I thought we were too
late--another moment--one little moment more--and he had been gone!"
and she burst into an awful flood of tears, sobbing as though her heart
would break, and yet looking lovelier than ever as she did it. As last
she ceased.

"Forgive me, my Holly--forgive me for my weakness," she said. "Thou
seest after all I am a very woman. Think--now think of it! This morning
didst thou speak of the place of torment appointed by this new religion
of thine. Hell or Hades thou didst call it--a place where the vital
essence lives and retains an individual memory, and where all the errors
and faults of judgment, and unsatisfied passions and the unsubstantial
terrors of the mind wherewith it hath at any time had to do, come to
mock and haunt and gibe and wring the heart for ever and for ever with
the vision of its own hopelessness. Thus, even thus, have I lived for
full two thousand years--for some six and sixty generations, as ye
reckon time--in a Hell, as thou callest it--tormented by the memory of
a crime, tortured day and night with an unfulfilled desire--without
companionship, without comfort, without death, and led on only down my
dreary road by the marsh lights of Hope, which, though they flickered
here and there, and now glowed strong, and now were not, yet, as my
skill told me, would one day lead unto my deliverer.

"And then--think of it still, oh Holly, for never shalt thou hear such
another tale, or see such another scene, nay, not even if I give the