seemed to flow in soliloquy. She looked at him several times while he spoke; but her eyes sunk under the brightness of his. She saw enough, however, to ascertain that he was singularly handsome and noble-looking, that his hair was blacker than the raven's wing, and his complexion startlingly pale.

"Why do you not answer?" continued he, after a pause; "I perceive that you understand me; why, then, do you not speak? Is it more a crime to converse with the lips than with the soul?"

"The soul respondeth unconsciously," replied Hagar: "but there are many things which place a seal upon the lips. Thou and I are not mere abstractions, and we cannot hold communion as such. Methinks, for a lover of society and of the intercourse of his kind, yonder ruined vault was a strange resort!"

"I had business there," said the stranger.

"Business!"

"Yes," said he, as he drew from beneath his cloak an infant's skull. "Why start at the sight?" he continued; "Do you dislike to look upon the dead as well as the living? What is there in this to fear?"

"What is there in it to covet?" demanded she. "Why violate the sanctuary of the dead to possess a thing at once so useless and so mournful?” A strange smile passed

across his face.

Mournful!" said he; 66 so is the vault in which it was found; so is the chapel of the vault; so is the hill; so is the soil on which we tread; for all are ruins, and relics, and remembrances of what hath passed away. The earth itself is a vast burying-place whose mould is composed of the generations it has buried. In a little while this skull will be earth! If it is more mournful now than then, it is only a proof that our soul is the slave of our senses.”

"And its use?" said Hagar, wondering at her own desire to prolong so useless a conversation; yet fascinated, not only by the musical tone of the speaker's voice, but by what to her half-informed mind was the novelty of his ideas.

"It is a question that should be answered, and yet which cannot be answered lightly or in a breath. The answer would involve a history of myself; a key to my most secret thoughts to my most lofty aspirations. I think, however— I feel I know that I should not be silent, if I knew you better. You seem to me as one for whom I have been long looking. There is a spirit, a meaning in your eye, of which you are perhaps yourself unconscious, but which my soul,

practised in the mysteries of nature, knows how to interpret. I feel as if we had known one another in some former state of existence, and half remembered it in this. Let us be friends; or, if the request be too much for one so recently known, let us become acquainted. I would fain relieve my mind of a load of knowledge which lies upon it like guilt. I have long sought, and sought in vain, the individual in whom the confidence is destined to be placed. If I am not deceived in an art known to few, you are that individual!"

Hagar was not unacquainted with the reveries of the astrologer, the alchemist, the physiognomist, and the other enthusiasts who, at that period, groped in the dark after knowledge; and, perhaps, if this discourse had been addressed to her in her father's laboratory, she would have listened without surprise. Here, however, the scene, the time, the person, threw over it an air of such extravagance, that she could have believed herself to be in a dream, and, for that very reason, it produced the more effect.

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"Sir," said she, "a communion like that at which you so darkly hint could only take place between two minds which had undergone the same preparation. I am not different from thee in kind-neither is the naked African: but my soul is not as thy soul; I have neither knowledge nor wisdom; and even in rank, we are so far asunder, that men would wonder to see us hold converse together;" and she drew her peasant's cloak around her, forgetting that the st.anger must have seen the gorgeous apparel beneath, and unconscious that her language and manner of thinking were at least those of an instructed person.

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Your soul," said he, "I do not know, I only imagine it; for, although it is easy for such as I to guess at the depth from the surface, yet it is only an empirical philosophy which pretends to penetrate to the bottom at a single glance. If you are not she whom I seek, wherefore are you here? Why should we two have been sifted from the mass of mankind, and thrown together at an hour when the rest of the world is asleep, and on a lonely and remote spot filled with the bones of the forgotten dead?

As for rank," and a scornful smile passed over his features, 66 can you tell me whether this was the skull of a royal infant or a beggar's brat? What are those distinctions which last but for a few years and then vanish like a dream? They are as 'nothing, less than nothing, and vanity. A prince without power and without fortune is nothing better than a peasant. Were I at this moment to array you in the state of a queen; to rear a silken canopy

over your head; to place your foot upon marble and gilding; to stretch under your sway a tract of country greater than the eye could measure; would you be anything less than a queen because you were born in a village?

"It is in my power to do this, but this is nothing. Vanity has no desire and pride no object which is not attainable by us both. If you are she whom I seek, queens will be your handmaidens, and knights and bannerets your slaves. But enough for the present. You lodge, where?"

The Jewess pointed at hazard to the only cottage in the village where there was still a light in the window.

Do we meet again at the ruined chapel?"

"No-no-no.'

"It does not matter.

Where?"

"Verily, I am but a passer by; I may not tarry by the wayside."

"What of that?"

"I am journeying towards Nantes."

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Be it so; were it towards Babylon. We meet next at Nantes." And the stranger took her hand, and bowing his head upon it gravely, touched it with his lips; he then turned away without another word, and in a few moments his graceful figure was lost among the neighbouring trees.*

Hagar was perplexed and astonished; but as we have already hinted, not so much by the enthusiasm of the stranger, which was perfectly in consonance with the spirit of the age, as by the whole adventure taken with its concomitant circumstances. This singular man was doubtless one of the learned and ingenious persons who occasionally sojourned at the almost regal court of La Verrière. Nay, such was his loftiness of manner and aspect, that she might have supposed him to be the famous Gilles de Retz himself, had she not been aware of the character of the latter. So far from being a contemner of the advantages of rank like the stranger, he was one of the proudest and most ostentatious men of his time. He aped the monarch in state; transacted his business by means of ambassadors; and never stirred out of doors unless when attended by a body-guard of hundreds of men at arms.

Hagar walked slowly towards the village, and having reached the cottage distinguished by a light in the window,

* A scene similar to this occurs in the author's "Wanderings by the Loire;" to which work the reader is referred for a historical account of Gilles de Retz, and to the drawings by Turner it contains for an idea of some of the localities of the present story.

knocked gently at the door. She had heard voices within, and sounds as if of mirth; but all became silent in an instant. She knocked again, and, putting her ear to the keyhole, could hear whispered consultations as to the propriety of opening.

"Take care what you are about," said one; "it is nearly midnight, and who knows what visitors this unlucky candle may have attracted!"

"But only think, Jehan, if it should be one from the castle, and you know they do not care about hours."

"Bah! nobody coming from the castle strikes so softly. That was no flesh and blood knock you may depend upon it. Hush!"

"Good friends," said Hagar, "I am a weary and benighted traveller, and I can pay in silver money for a night's lodging."

Ay, ay, a traveller, no doubt," repeated Jehan, in his rough but frightened whisper, "going to and fro, as usual.” Yet it was a sweet low voice."

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To be sure.

Does the wolf howl when he asks the sheep to open? But your honest traveller does not say, Open for a piece of silver,' but, 'Open for the love of the Holy Virgin who hath sent you one!'”

For all that, I will speak to our bride-cousin, for she can read and write as well as Father Bonaventure himself. Hist! Marie!" and some one came apparently from an inner room. "Here is a knock, which Jehan says is not of flesh and blood; but to my thinking the voice that accompanies it is as sweet as a lute; whereas the Evil One, you know better than we, is likened unto a roaring lion."

Hagar tried the magic of her voice once more, and the door was instantly thrown open.

"Are you come at last?" said the peasant Marie, grasping her hand; "I inquired for you at every house in the village, and, knowing that there was no other shelter, I had begun to dread the worst. Nevertheless, I contrived to persuade my cousin Jehan to sit up for a while with his sister, on pretence of wishing to talk of some businessmatters after my journey with " A hoarse chuckle from Jehan and a laugh from the sister interrupted her.

"What then?" said Marie, severely; "I am to be married the day after to-morrow, and where is the harm? But make haste, cousin, and give the traveller to eat and drink, for it is time we were all in bed."

“Tell me,” said Hagar, "was the anger of her of Laval kindled against thee?"

"I did not see the damsel-the watch was changed before she called for me. Yet I had some difficulty in passing the gate, an absurd story having got among the guard, that I had been already there, beat three of the soldiers black and blue, and rushed out without waiting to answer a question. And all because I can read and write! But come, eat, drink, and to bed. Jehan growls but will not bite, and both he and his sister are ignorant that you are not of us. In the morning we shall all go to Nantes together, as a party has been made up to see a mystery given to the people by the great Lord de Řetz.'

CHAPTER XIII.

AFTER taking some refreshment, Hagar lay down, without undressing, on a pallet spread in a recess, and speedily sunk into a long and troubled sleep. She was awakened by the beams of the sun striking painfully upon her eye-lids; and, on looking up, saw Marie standing by the couch, and gazing at her with a strong expression of wonder and admiration.

"You are a picture," said the latter, "for a limner to draw!-lying on that bed of leaves, in raiment of gold and silver, like a fairy princess-with your hair blacker than midnight, floating in dishevelled tresses over a cheek which would be like a marble image but for the dreams that pass across it. Get up, lady, and say your matins (if such be the custom of your people), and make your toilet quickly; for half the village is waiting for us." Hagar obeyed her humble friend at once; and in less time than the latter would have taken to arrange a single curl of her hair, was ready for the journey. In saying her matins, she turned towards the region of the early sun-looking in vain for that Star which had risen above her head while she slept, and which shall never come again till the firmament itself has passed away. Marie stepped back unconsciously, and turned away her head; crossing herself repeatedly as the unhallowed prayers ascended to heaven.

She advised Hagar to draw her cloak completely round her, so as to conceal the singularity of her dress; and, again bidding her remember that none of the other villagers knew that she was an unbeliever, conducted her out of the house.

"Do not be alarmed," she said, as they walked along,