"O, father," whispered Frank, with a glance of burning indignation, "this is too much—" Her words were interrupted by the sudden opening of the door.
"Is there no way of escape,—none?"—a voice was heard exclaiming these words, in tones of fright and madness,—"Is there no way of escape from this abode of ruin and death?"
The pen dropped from the hand of Nameless. That voice congealed the blood in his veins.
Turning his head over his shoulders, he saw the speaker,—while the whole scene swam for a moment before his eyes,—saw that young countenance, now wild with affright, on which was imprinted the stainless beauty of a pure and virgin soul.
"The grave has given up its dead!" he cried, and staggered toward the phantom which rose between him and the door; the phantom of a young and beautiful woman, clad in the faded garments of poverty and toil; her unbound hair streaming wildly about her face, her eyes dilating with terror, her clasped hands strained against her agitated bosom.
"The grave has given up its dead," he cried. "Mary!" O, how that name awoke the memories of other days! "Mary! when last I saw thee, thou wert beside my coffin, while my soul communed with thine." And again he called that sacred name.
It was no phantom, but a living and beautiful woman. She saw his face,—she uttered a cry,—she knew him.
"Gulian!" she cried, and spread forth her arms. Not one thought that he had died and been buried,—she saw him living,—she knew him,—he was before her,—that was all. "Husband!"
He rushed to her embrace, but even as his arms were outspread to clasp her form, he fell on his knees. His head rested against her form, his hands clasped her knees. The emotion of the moment had been too much for him; he had fainted at her feet.
She knelt beside him, and took his head to her bosom, and pressed her lips against his death-like forehead, and then her loosened hair hid his face from the light. She wept aloud.