However, dear Edgar, I remembered our solemn promise; and as you were not here to release me, I was obliged to fulfil it to the letter.  And then again, shall I say it, this humane consideration did not extend to the offending woman; my heart was still filled with a sentiment that has no name in the language of the passions!—­A mixture of hatred, love, jealousy, scorn and despair.

She was not dead!  A man had been sacrificed as a victim upon the altar of this goddess:  that was all.

Do not women require amusement of this sort?

She would live; to-day, she would weep; to-morrow, seek the common path of consolation.  One victim is not enough to gratify her cruel vanity!  She must be quickly consoled, that she might be ready to receive fresh sacrifices in her temple.

My heart filled with angry passions awakened by these thoughts, I spurred my horse, and hastened in the direction of the house that had been described to me the day before.  I soon recognised the picturesque spot, where this accursed house lay concealed in the midst of beautiful trees and smiling waters.

An electric shock must have communicated to you, dear Edgar, the oppression of heart I felt at the sight of the landscape.  There was the history of love in every tree and flower.  There was an ineffable record in the hedges of the valleys; loving caresses in the murmur of the water-lilies; ecstasies of lovers in the quivering of the leaves; divine intoxication in the exhalations of the wild flowers, and in the lights, shadows and gentle breezes under the mysterious alcoves of the trees.  Oh! how happy they must have been in this paradise!  The whole air was filled with the life of their love and happiness!  There must have been present a supernatural and invisible being, who was a jealous witness of this wedded bliss, and who made use of your sword to destroy it!  So much happiness was an offence before heaven.  We have been the blind instrument of a wrathful spirit.  But what mattered death after such a day of perfect bliss!  After having tasted the most exquisite tenderness in the world!  When looking at the proud young husband sitting in this flowery bower, with the soft starlight revealing his happy face as he tenderly and hopefully gazed on his lovely bride, who would not have exclaimed with the poet,

  “My life for a moment of bliss like this.”

Who would not have welcomed your sword-thrust as the price of a moment’s duration of such divine joy?

The survivors are the unfortunate ones, because they saw but could not taste this happiness.

Infernal Tantalus of the delights of Paradise, because their dream has become the reality of another, and lawful vengeance leaves them a satisfaction poisoned by remorse!

Come with me, dear Edgar, in my sad pilgrimage to this accursed house, and with me behold the closing scene.  I left the shade of the woods and approached the lawn, that, like an immense terrace of grass and flowers, spread before the house.  I saw many strange things, and with that comprehensive, sweeping glance of feverish excitement; two horses covered with foam, their saddles empty and bridles dragging, trampled down the flower-borders.  One horse was Raymond’s, returned riderless!  Doubtless brought home by the servant who had accompanied him.