The scents of old roses, the stings of old sins, awoke and vanished, like the pulsing of fire-flies.  But even now he was the watcher of his own moods; and when among the rest the thought would come:  “What if this should be my own Juliet!  Do not time and place agree with the possibility?” and for a moment life seemed as if it would burst into the very madness of delight, ever and again his common sense drove him to conclude that his imagination was fooling him.  He dared not yield to the intoxicating idea.  If he did, he would be like a man drinking poison, well knowing that every sip, in itself a delight, brought him a step nearer to agony and death!  When she should wake, and he let the light fall upon her face, he knew—­so he said to himself—­he knew the likeness would vanish in an appalling unlikeness, a mockery, a scoff of the whole night and its lovely dream—­in a face which, if beautiful as that of an angel, not being Juliet’s would be to him ugly, unnatural, a discord with the music of his memory.  Still the night was checkered with moments of silvery bliss, in the indulgence of the mere, the known fancy of what it would be if it were she, vanishing ever in the reviving rebuke, that he must nerve himself for the loss of that which the morning must dispel.  Yet, like one in a dream, who knows it is but a dream, and scarce dares breathe lest he should break the mirrored ecstasy, he would not carry the lamp to the bedside:  no act of his should disperse the airy flicker of the lovely doubt, not a movement, not a nearer glance, until stern necessity should command.

History knows well the tendency of things to repeat themselves.  Similar circumstances falling together must incline to the production of similar consequent events.

Toward morning Juliet awoke from her long sleep, but she had the vessel of her brain too empty of the life of this world to recognize barely that which was presented to her bodily vision.  Over the march of two worlds, that of her imagination, and that of fact, her soul hovered fluttering, and blended the presentment of the two in the power of its unity.

The only thing she saw was the face of her husband, sadly lighted by the dimmed lamp.  It was some-distance away, near the middle of the room:  it seemed to her miles away, yet near enough to be addressed.  It was a more beautiful face now than ever before—­than even then when first she took it for the face of the Son of Man—­more beautiful, and more like Him, for it was more humane.  Thin and pale with suffering, it was nowise feeble, but the former self-sufficiency had vanished, and a still sorrow had taken its place.

He sat sunk in dim thought.  A sound came that shook him as with an ague fit.  Even then he mastered his emotion, and sat still as a stone.  Or was it delight unmastered, and awe indefinable, that paralyzed him?  He dared not move lest he should break the spell.  Were it fact, or were it but yet further phantom play on his senses, it should unfold itself; not with a sigh would he jar the unfolding, but, ear only, listen to the end.  In the utter stillness of the room, of the sleeping house, of the dark, embracing night, he lay in famished wait for every word.