“Are you in pain, Beulah?  Why do you moan so?”

“Eugene, I knew it would be so, when you left me.”

“Don’t you know me, Beulah?” He put his face close to hers.

“They killed her, Eugene!  I told you they would; they are going to bury her soon.  But the grave can’t hide her; I am going down with her into the darkness—­she would be frightened, you know.”  Making a great effort, she sat upright.  Dr. Hartwell put a glass containing medicine to her lips; she shrank back and shuddered, then raised her hand for the glass, and, looking fixedly at him, said:  “Did Mrs. Grayson say I must take it?  Is it poison that kills quickly?  There; don’t frown, Eugene, I will drink it all for you.”  She swallowed the draught with a shiver.  He laid her back on her pillow and renewed the iced-cloth on her forehead; she did not move her burning eyes from his face, and the refreshing coolness recalled the sad smile.  “Are we on the Alps, Eugene?  I feel dizzy; don’t let me fall.  There is a great chasm yonder.  Oh, I know now; I am not afraid; Lilly is down there—­come on.”  Her arms drooped to her side, and she slept again.

Evening shadows crept on; soon the room was dark.  Harriet entered with a shaded lamp, but her master motioned her out, and, throwing open the blinds, suffered the pure moonlight to enter freely.  The window looked out on the flower garden, and the mingled fragrance of roses, jasmines, honeysuckles, and dew-laden four-o’clocks enveloped him as in a cloud of incense.  A balmy moonlight June night in our beautiful sunny South—­who shall adequately paint its witchery?  Dr. Hartwell leaned his head against the window, and glanced down at the parterre he had so fondly fostered.  The golden moonlight mellowed every object, and not the gorgeous pictures of Persian poets surpassed the quiet scene that greeted the master.  The shelled serpentine walks were bordered with low, closely clipped cassina hedges; clusters of white and rose oleander, scarlet geraniums, roses of countless variety, beds of verbena of every hue, and patches of brilliant annuals, all looked up smilingly at him.  Just beneath the window the clasping tendrils of a clematis were wound about the pedestal of a marble Flora, and a cluster of the delicate purple blossoms peeped through the fingers of the goddess.  Further off, a fountain flashed in the moonlight, murmuring musically in and out of its reservoir, while the diamond spray bathed the sculptured limbs of a Venus.  The sea breeze sang its lullaby through the boughs of a luxuriant orange tree near, and silence seemed guardian spirit of the beautiful spot, when a whip-poor-will whirred through the air, and, perching on the snowy brow of the Aphrodite, began his plaintive night-hymn.  In childhood Guy Hartwell had been taught by his nurse to regard the melancholy chant as ominous of evil; but as years threw their shadows over his heart, darkening the hopes of his boyhood, the sad notes of the lonely