"This is not my room," said she, drawing the shawl around her. "Come, Robert, we have much to say to each other."

She went; I followed her to her room. "Here we can talk freely," said she, and we sat down upon the sofa. How we talked! Once more I lived again in all the fever-tumult of an old love, which I had supposed was long ago extinguished. Julia, unhappy in her marriage, treated me with all her foriner tenderness. She was more beautiful, more blooming than

ever.

There was a magic, which I cannot describe, in Julia's words and in her whole manner. All the past rose vividly before

me.

Our first acquaintance at her sister's wedding; the emotions which filled us then; our meeting again in the garden of the ducal castle; then the excursion upon the water with our parents; then-but enough

Suddenly the door opened. The tall, lank man entered, with the question, "Who is this with you, Julia ?" We sprang up, terrified. The count stood for a moment speechless, and pale as a corpse. Then, with three steps, he strode toward Julia, wound her long chestnut locks around his hand, hurled her shrieking to the floor, and dragged her about, exclaiming, Faithless woman! false wretch!"

I rushed to her aid. He pushed me away with such force that I tumbled back upon the floor. As I rose to my feet again he let go the unhappy Julia, and cried out to me, "You I'll throttle!" In my desperation I caught up a knife from the table, and threatened to plunge it into him if he did not keep still. But the frantic man threw himself upon me, and seized me by the throat. I lost my breath, and brandished the knife in all directions. I thrust it repeatedly at him. Suddenly the unhappy man fell. The knife was in his heart.

justice. But on the stairs I saw that my clothes were sprinkled with blood. I trembled at the thought of being seen.

The street-door was locked. As I turned to escape through the yard I heard people crying and calling after me from above. I ran across the yard to the barn; I knew that thence I could get out into the gardens and fields outside the town. But my pursuers were close behind me. I had scarcely reached the barn when some one seized me by the coat. With fearful desperation I tore myself away, and hurled the burning candle into a large haystack near by. It suddenly caught fire; so I hoped to save myself. I succeeded. They let me go, their attention being diverted by the fire; I escaped into the open country.

I rushed blindly forward, over hedges and hillocks. The idea of seeing my Fanny, and Augustus, and Leopold, was no more to be thought of. The instinct of self-preservation took precedence of everything else. When I thought of my return home yesterday, and of my expectations of the coming morning, I could not believe what had happened. But my bloody and clotted clothes, and the cool morning air, which chilled me through, convinced me only too truly of the reality. I ran almost breathless, until I could run no longer. Had I had any weapon of death about me, or had a stream been near, I should have ceased to live.

Dripping with sweat, and utterly exhausted, with trembling knees, I continued my flight at a slower pace. I was obliged at times to stop to recover myself. Several times I was on the point of fainting quite away.

Thus I succeeded in reaching the next village. While I stood hesitating whether to go round it or go boldly through it, for it was bright moonlight, and the sun had not yet risen, the village bells began to ring, and soon I heard bells from more distant quarters. There was a general alarm.

Every stroke harrowed me. I looked round. Behind me appeared a dark-red. glow; a huge pillar of flame licked the very clouds! The whole town was on fire. I-I was the incendiary! O, my Fanny! O, my children! what a horrible awakening has your father prepared for

Then it seemed to me as if I were lifted up by the hair, and my feet were light as feathers. I ran, leaping furiously, round the village to a pine wood. The flames of my home shone like the day, and the moaning alarm-bells rang with heart-rending tones through my distracted soul.

As soon as I had reached the depth of the wood, and had got so far in that I could no longer see the light of the conflagration, which had hitherto caused my shadow to dance before me like a ghost, I could go no further. I threw myself on the earth, and cried like a child. I beat my head against the ground, and tore up the grass and roots in my phrensy. I would gladly have died, but knew not how.

In the meantime the alarm-bells boomed most fearfully, and frightened me to my feet again. I rejoiced that it was not yet day. I could still hope to get a good start without being known. The horrible red-coat now occurred to me more vividly than ever, with his strange speeches. Now-why should I deny it ?-now would I have given my soul were he really the personage whom he had pretended in jest to be, that he might save me, take from me all memory of the past, and give me my wife and children, in some corner of the earth where we might spend our days undiscovered.

But the alarm-bells sounded still louder. I discerned the gray of the morning. I sprang from the ground, and continued my flight through the bushes, and came upon the highway.

CAIN.

HERE I took breath. All that happened was so horrible, so sudden, I could not believe it. I looked around me; the reflection of the conflagration glowed through the pine-trees. I felt that my clothes and my fingers were all wet with the blood of the count.

"This will betray me to the first that meets me," thought I; and I tore off my spotted clothes, and hid them in the thick bushes, and washed my hands in the dew on the grass. Thus, half clad, I ran out on the highway.

"What am I now?" said I to myself; "whoever sees me will pursue me. Only crazy people or murderers run through the woods half naked; or I must pretend that I have been robbed. Could I only meet a peasant whom I could overpower,

he should furnish ine with clothes, so I might disguise myself for a while. I might hide myself in the woods by day, and continue my flight by night. But where get food? where money?" And now I recollected that I had left my pocket-book in my coat, which I had thrown away, and so deprived myself of all my cash.

I stood for a moment undetermined. I thought of turning back to seek my pocketbook. But the blood of the count! I could not have looked upon that again had a million of dollars been to be got by it. And to go back to have continually before my eyes the light of the conflagration flickering through the pine-trees! No; the flames of an open hell rather! So I wandered on.

I heard the rattling of a vehicle; perhaps a fire-engine and peasants running to give their aid. Instantly I threw myself into the bushes, whence I could look out. I trembled like an aspen leaf. A handsome open traveling carriage, drawn by two horses, and loaded with baggage, approached. A man sat in it, driving. He stopped just before me, got out, and went back a little way to pick up something he had dropped.

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"It would help me mightily to get off," thought I, were I only in that carriage! My legs are giving out; they will drag me no further. Clothes, money, swift flight, all now within reach. Heaven certainly means to favor me. I'll take the hint. I'll jump in !"

No sooner thought than done. Not a moment was to be lost in consideration. Every man is his own nearest neighbor, and saves himself first when he can. Despair and necessity have no law. A leap, and I was out of the bushes into the road, from the road into the carriage; I seized the reins, and turned the horses round, away from my burning home. The man sprang at the horses, and just as I let them feel the whip he tried to seize them by the bit. He stood right before them. I plied the whip more vigorously. It was now or never with me. The horses reared and sprang forward. The owner fell and lay under the horses' feet. I drove over him. He cried for help. His voice pierced me to the very soul. It was a well-known voice, a beloved voice. I could not believe my ears. I stopped, and leaned out of the carriage

to look at the unfortunate man. I saw him! But I shudder to relate it-I saw my brother, who must unexpectedly have finished his business at Prague, or for some other reason was on his way home.

I sat there as if struck by lightning, disabled, paralyzed. My poor brother lay moaning under the wheel. Such a thing I had never dreamed of. I dragged my self slowly from the carriage. I sank down beside him. The heavy wheel had gone over his breast. With a low, tremulous voice I called him by name. He heard me no more; he recognized me no more. It was all over with him. I was the accursed one who had robbed him of a life as dear to me as my own. Horrible! two murders in the same night! both, indeed, involuntary, both committed in despair. But they were still committed, and the consequences of the first crime, which I might have avoided.

My eyes were wet, but not with tears of grief over the beloved dead, but tears of frantic rage against my fate, against Heaven. Never in my life had I stained myself with an atrocious crime. I had been alive to all that was beautiful, good, great, and true. I had had no sweeter joy than to make others happy. And now, a cursed thoughtlessness, a single unhappy moment of self-forgetfulness, and then this guilty play of accident or necessity had made me the most miserable wretch under heaven. O, let no one boast of his virtue, his strength, or his circumspection! It needs only a minute for a man to thrust aside a little his firmest principles, only a minute, and the pure angel is capable of the greatest crimes. Well for him is it, if fate, more favorable to him than to me, throws no brother in his way to be run over like mine!

But let the moral go. For him who has not found it out of himself there is no moral. I will hasten to the end of my unhappy story, than which no poet ever invented anything more horrible.

THE TEMPTER AGAIN.

I soon heard the neighing of horses before me. I was startled; the love of life awoke in me anew. I thought of fleeing back into the wood. I had been very wicked; I was a criminal of the worst kind; but I might hope still to be happy

could I save myself this time. For I never was a complete villain, although the most thoughtless. So thought I to myself, forgetting all my resolutions, and already in imagination I was in a remote solitude, where, under a strange name, unknown to the world, I could live with my wife and children. Occupied with these thoughts, I had still gone forward. As the road opened I saw right before me horses standing, a carriage upset with a broken wheel, and, to my horror, or to my delight, standing near, the well-known red-coat.

When he saw me he grinned after his usual fashion. "Welcome here!" said he. "Did I not tell you that we should find each other again? I have been waiting all night; my coachman has gone back to the town for help, and has not returned."

"His help is wanted more there than here," said I; "the whole town is on fire."

"I thought so," returned he, "for I saw the light in the sky. But what do you want in the woods? What are you seeking here? Why are you not helping to extinguish the fire?"

"I have quite other fires to extinguish," said I.

"I thought so; didn't I tell you so?" "O, save me! I have become a wretched criminal, a faithless husband, a murderer, an incendiary, a highway robber, and a fratricide-all since the moment you left me-all within three hours. And yet I am not a wicked man."

The red-coat stamped on the ground with his club foot as I said this, apparently in high displeasure. But his features remained hard and stern. He made me no answer. I then related to him the unprecedented history of the night. He kept quiet.

"Do you not now know who I am, and what I want of you ?"

My soul! my soul !" shrieked I; "for now, indeed, I begin to believe that you are the person whom in jest I took you to be in Prague."

"And that person was- 99
"Satan."

"Then fall down and worship me!" bellowed he, in a horrible voice.

I fell upon my knees before him like a crazy man, raised my clasped hands, and cried, "Save me! Save my wife and my children from destruction! They are in

nocent. Carry us to some desert, where we may have bread and water, and a cave to live in. We shall be as happy there as in paradise. But blot this night from my memory, or else paradise itself would be a hell. If you cannot do that, it were better for me to atone for my crimes on the scaffold." As I said this he raised his club foot, and pushed me contemptuously with it, so that I fell backward to the earth. I sprang up. I was about to repeat my entreaties, but he interrupted me: 'There, commend me," said he, "to your pious, tender-hearted man! Look at the proud mortal in the majesty of his reason! Look at the philosopher who denies the devil, and brings eternity itself | into learned doubt! he crowns his crimes with the worship of Satan."

"Now I know thee, Satan," cried I, raving. "I see now that not a touch of the sympathy which dwells in the human heart has a place in your iron breast. I want no sympathy from thee. Thou feelest nothing but malicious scorn. I would have purchased thy favor, purchased it with my soul. But my soul will do better. It will find the way to repentance and mercy. It will escape you yet, and when you fancy yourself most sure of it." Scowling grimly he replied, "No, sir, I am not the devil, as you suppose. I am a man like you. You have been a criminal; now you are a madman. But he who has once broken with his better faith is soon done with reason too. I despise you. Truly, I would not help you if I could. I do not want your soul. It is all ripe for hell, and Satan need not of fer a brass farthing for it."

perfectly innocent, even when stained with a brother's blood."

"Yes; you, sir, were the first cause of all my terrible sufferings. Why did you come in the night to my summer-house, where I was sleeping, harmless and quiet, awaiting the break of day? Had you not awakened me, all this never would have happened."

"But did I awake you to conjugal infidelity and to arson? That's just the way with man. When he has assassinated some thousands he would lay all the blame on the miner who has dug the steel out of the earth. Your breath, sir, is the cause of your crimes, because, if you could not breathe, you never would have committed them; but without breath you could have no life."

"But why did you play the part of the devil with me in the garden, and say so significantly that whoever lets the devil have hold of a hair, it will be the string by which he will get his whole head."

"True that! Did I tell you a lie? Who can testify more fearfully to that truth than yourself? Have I asked a hair of you? or did you offer it to me? But, sir, when you saw Julia, your first love, you ought to have remembered Fanny. You trusted too much to your virtue, or rather you did not think of virtue at all. Religion and virtue would have told you, flee home to the summer-house. Sir, the instant temptation appears man must take care how he permits himself in the slightest thought that favors sin; for the first little thought of evil, which one allows himself to entertain, is the aforesaid hair in the claw of the devil."

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Right! O right! but could I have foreseen that?"

"To be sure you could." "It was impossible. Think only of the horrible coincidence of circumstances!"

"Of that, as a possibility, you ought to have thought. Could you not have thought of the count when you held his wife in your arms? of the conflagration when you threw the candle into the hay? of fratricide when you drove the horses over the body of their owner? for, whether he or another, every man is your brother."

"Too true! But drive me not to greater despair. You must at least grant that the first fault might have happened without all the other horrors if there had

not been the most terrible combination of circumstances."

“You are mistaken! What was there so terrible in the count's coming to his wife? What was there so very terrible in there being hay in the barn as in all other barns? What so strange in your brother's happening to pass that way? No, sir; what you call a horrible coincidence might have been for you, had you kept in the right path, most happy. The world is good; it is the mind that turns it into a hell. It is man that first makes the dagger and the poison, which else would have been the peaceful plowshare or the healing medicine. yourself."

Do not pretend to vindicate

Here I could not help crying out in utter despair when I saw the full extent of my enormities. "O," cried I, "up to this night I have been innocent; a good father, a faithful husband, without reproach; now I am without rest, without honor, without consolation!"

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No, sir; there, too, I must contradict you. You have not become what you are in one night, but you became it long ago. One cannot change from an angel to a devil in an hour, unless he possesses already every disposition to become a devil. Opportunity only is wanting for the inner man to become the outer. You only needed to see Julia alone. The fire sleeps in the steel and flint, although we see it not; strike them together and the sparks fly. The spark falls into a powder-cask near by, and half a city, with all its prosperity, is thrown into the sky."

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If I

"For God's sake, sir!" cried I, beside myself, save me, for time flies. have been bad, I can become better." "Certainly. Need brings strength." "Save me, and my wife and children! I can be better; I will be better, for I see now with horror of what crimes I was capable; crimes which I never could have believed that I could commit."

"It may be. But you are a weakling. Weakness is the foster-nurse of all wickedness. I will save you, if you can save yourself. Do you know me now, and what I want of you?"

RESCUE.

"BLOT out the remembrance of my guilt forever, if thou canst.”

The old man spoke, "I will blot it out; it will trouble thee no more."

As he said this he dissolved away over me like a mist, and I gazed at the gray rocks above me, and understood nothing of what had happened. But I was filled with an unspeakable peace. And yet it was all like a fairy tale.

While I still gazed at the rocks above me the lips of an unseen being were pressed to mine. I felt a warm kiss.

A NEW WORLD.

THAT kiss brought me back to earth. I thought my eyes were open, but I found that they were shut; for I heard light footsteps around me, and yet saw no one in the cave.

There came a soft breath upon my cheek, and two sweet lips once more touched mine. The feeling of life again returned to my outward senses. I heard the whispering of children's voices. Dream and reality were mingled confusedly together; but they soon began to be parted the one from the other more distinctly, until I came fully to myself, and perceived clearly what was round me. I became aware that I was lying in a stiff, uncomfortable posture. It seemed to me as if I were on the sofa in my summerhouse. I opened my eyes, and my Fanny hung over me. It was her kisses that had awakened me. Our children clapped their hands for joy when they saw me awaking, and clambered up on the sofa upon me, crying, one after the other,

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Papa! papa! good morning!" And my dear little wife locked me in her arms, and, with eyes filled with tears, chid me for having slept all night in the cold summer-house; and had not Christopher, our man-servant, come back but a quarter of an hour before from the post-house, and told the maids in the kitchen of my arrival, not a soul would have known that I had come.

But the heavy dream had affected me to such a degree that I lay still for some time, not venturing to trust my eyes or my ears. I looked around for the fantastic cave in the desert, but still I was in the summer-house. There lay still the drums, whips, and playthings on the