either of her presence there or of her having quitted the city. Afterwards I sold off everything I was possessed of, and partially on foot, I journeyed to Paris, and so on at last to London, at every opportunity seeking traces of her on the road. Arrived in London, I was enabled after much difficulty to resume the receipt of my annuity. This furnished me with the means of continued search. My personal wants are small, and every farthing not absorbed by these, I have expended in the prosecution of my hapless search. I have visited every town in Europe, making inquiries far and near, as I proceeded. I have explored every corner where I could dream of her being by any possibility secluded. I have called in the aid of the police. I have agents here, in France, in Germany. I wander from one to the other, searching, waiting, hoping. All, all in vain. I cannot find her. She is lost! she is lost!”
There was a dreadful accent of despair in his words.
“And you have now resigned your quest?” I asked.
“I shall resign it but with life,” he answered solemnly. “It is the sole object of my existence. I live for this only. No one tie unites me to my fellows, or to this earth, but the hope of finding Margaret. O, to see her once again!” he cried with passion, “to assure her of my unceasing love, to win her pardon for the wrong which drove her from me, to soothe the remainder of her life by tenderness, to efface the anguish of the past by my devotion!”
“You have not seen her for fifteen years?”
“No,” and then after a pause, he added, “unless I saw her but a few hours before you first addressed me in the coffee-room.”
“You think you saw her then?”
“Listen. I seek her everywhere. No place is too exalted, no place is too lowly for my search, and day and night have I pursued it. In the palace as in the cellar, in the churchyard, and in the prison; in all phases of life, even amid scenes it had been better she should have died a hundred times than have lived to know, I have carried on my search. I have ceased to bewilder myself with probabilities, I seek her systematically everywhere. I extend my toil through the night, even into the hours of the morning. Then I have wandered to that lime-tree in the park, consecrated by her memory, and have bowed down in its shadow with my one prayer—that I may meet her yet once again before I die. I am known to the police, who regard me probably as an eccentric, privileged to do what seem to them strange things. Hence my rumblings by day or night receive from them neither question nor molestation.
“It was a cold night. The ground had been covered for some days with a frozen snow. There was no moon, but the stars were out, shining brilliantly in their pale, wan splendour. The white ground and the cold, clear air, rendered objects readily distinguishable, even at a considerable distance. I strode towards the lime-tree, and when within some fifty yards of it, perceived that a figure, advancing, as it were, from an opposite direction, had already reached the tree: the form of a woman stood out darkly majestic against the white back-ground. I could hear no sound of other footsteps than my own, crunching on the congealed snow. Yet I could not be mistaken. Plainly before me I recognised a pale, thin face, and a figure clothed in black and floating garments. I gasped for breath. Not so much from visual recognition, however, as from the conviction of some inner feeling I knew that it was she! My blood mounted to my head—my sight grew dim—my heart throbbed as though it would burst. I hurried on; but as I neared the tree, the figure waving its hands with a strange, solemn action, glided away in the direction from which it had come. I followed, greatly agitated. I sought to overtake it, but it kept in advance of me. It moved towards the park gate on Constitution Hill, passed through, and disappeared. I ran to the gate. To my amazement I found it locked. I climbed over the railing, but I could see no one. I walked on for some minutes in the direction in which it had seemed to me the figure had turned. At length I encountered a policeman carrying his lanthorn, and beating himself with his disengaged arm to keep himself warm. In reply to my questions, I learnt that he had not seen a soul upon his beat for some two hours. Bewildered and excited, I hurried past him. For miles I walked on without pause. But fruitlessly. The figure had escaped me, and I returned towards town much and painfully moved. It was on that morning you first spoke to me in the coffee-room.
“I know how the world would receive the story of this strange occurrence. I should be ridiculed as a monomaniac, or science would tell me that I was the victim of a spectral illusion; the result of unstrung nerves, or disordered brain. Yet, as certainly as I now stand here, as plainly as I can see you facing me, on the night in question did I see the form of Margaret, my wife, beneath the lime-tree in the Green Park. I am not more satisfied of my own existence than of that.”
“But how did she escape you? How did she quit the park?”
For some minutes he did not answer.
“In these days,” he said, at length, “it seems to me that men have become so learned they have taught themselves to dispense with belief, and have voted faith unnecessary. The supernatural is regarded as an old nurse’s tale, fit only to frighten children. To credit aught out of the pale of the common-place, is scorned as credulity. I am born of a country where ignorance embalms belief—where superstition is a religion. Tales of omens, of banshees, or wraiths, and all the wonderful poetry of the mysterious, were among the first lessons impressed upon my childish mind; and became too deeply fixed there to be effaced by either education, or age, or experience. Smile, if you will. I do not believe that it was Margaret’s self that I saw, but as I believe in Heaven, I believe that it was her wraith. It was Margaret—not in the flesh—but in the spirit!”
“You believe her dead, then?”
“No,” he cried, starting up. “I cannot believe her dead—not dead. I should die myself could I think that. No. She is living still. She