The sleeper awoke with a start—­a start of heavenly bliss followed by instant pain—­for as he peered into the night he saw that he was alone—­with the Silence and the Solitude.  The winds lay still in heaven and bore him no whisper or sigh.  The perfume from the censers of the angels still filled the air, but he was conscious of a great void—­a pain unbearable.  The kiss had awakened a thousand thronging memories; the kiss had robbed of their charm the elusive perfume, and the ghostly whisper of fluttering garments, and the shadowy foot-falls, and the faint, faraway sighs.  Henceforth these would cease to satisfy.  The kiss had made him know the want of his heart for love and companionship, such as the living Virginia had given him.

He listened and listened, but the winds lay still in heaven, and he was alone with the Silence—­the dread Silence—­and the heart-hunger, and the despair.

Then he arose from his bed of withered and sere leaves and as one distraught, wandered through the shadows of the misty, weird night.  In the wood and by the waters he wandered, while the night wore on and the moon held its way—­still a lustrous blur in the heavens.

On, on he wandered, seeking peace for his soul and finding none, till the moon was out and the stars fainted in the twilight of the approaching day, when lo, above the end of the path through the wood, the morning star—­“Astarte’s bediamonded crescent”—­arose upon his vision!

And as he gazed with wonder and delight upon the beautiful star, hope was born anew in his heart, for he said,

“It is the Star of Love!”

He that had always looked for signs in the skies, had he not found one?  What could it mean, this rising of the Star of Love upon the hour of his bitterest need but a sign of hope, of peace?

Vainly did his soul upbraid him and warn him not to trust the beacon—­to fly from its alluring light and cast aside its spell.  All deaf to the warning, he eagerly followed the star which promised renewal of hope and love and relief from the Solitude and the Silence—­the desolation that the kiss had made so real and intolerable.

But alas, as he wandered on and on, his eyes upon the star, his feet following blindly, without marking the path into which they had turned, his progress was suddenly checked.  Through the misty twilight of the approaching dawn there loomed an obstacle to his steps.  It was with horror unspeakable that he recognized the vault in which lay, in her last sleep, his loved Virginia....

    “Then his heart it grew ashen and sober
    As the leaves that were crisped and sere,—­
    As the leaves that were withering and sere!”

The Star of Love was fading in the eastern sky and through the ghostly dawn he turned and fled aghast to the cottage among the cherry trees.

* * * * *