The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-09-13
ENELtME'$ INSTANT.
CONCLUDED.

CONCLUDED.
One day, when ] wished to beguile'
her from that pensive silence in
which she was wont to sit an hour at
q time, I told her, laughing, that she
appeared to have forgotten her mys-
terious cavalier of the wood, and it
seemed also rs if he had forgotten
her.
To my wonderment, her pale face
became of O sudden crimson; and
from crimson to pale again in q
breath.
"You have never seen him since
you deserted your woodland and
grotto?" I said.
She turned to me with heart
rending look.
Hector" she cried, "I see him
every day, and it is that which is
killing me-"
She burst into passion of tears
when she had said this. I took her
in my arms as if she had been
frightened child, and tried to COM
fort her.
.My darling, this is Madness" I
said. "You know that no stranger
can come to you in the pleasaunce
The moat is ten feet wide, and always
full of water, and the gates are kept
locked day and night by old Mason.
The chatelaine of medieval fortress
need fear no intruder in her ANTIQUE
garden"
My wife shook her head sadly.
81 see him every day." she said.
On this believe my wife was mad.
1 shrank from questioning her more
closely concerning her mysterious
visitant. It would be ill, I thought,
to give form and substance to the
shadow that tormented her by too
close inquiry about its look and man-
ner, its coming and going.
took care to assure myself that
no stranger to the household could
by any possibility penetrate to the
pleasuance. Having done this, I
was fain to wait the coming of the
physician.
He came at last. I revealed to
him my conviction which was nv
mystery. I told him that I believed
my wife to be mad. He saw her
spent an hour alone with her, and
then came to me. To my unspeaka-
BILE relief, he assured me of her sani-
ty.
cit is just possible that she NAV
be affected by one delusion," he said.
"But she is SO reasonable upon all
other points, that I can scarcely bring
myself to believe her the subject Of
monomania. I am inclined to think
that she really sees the person of
whom she speaks. She described
him to me with perfect minuteness.
The description of scenes or indiyi-
duals given by patients afflicted with
monomania are more or less & ;oint-
ed; but your wife spoke t. ne as
clearly and calmly as 1 am now speak
ing to you. Are you sure there is
no one who can approach her in that
garden where she wall1s?"
II am quite sure"
els there any kinsman of your
steward, or hanger-on of your house
hold-a young man, with fair wo-
manish face, very pale, and rendered
remarkable for crimson scar, which
looks like the marks of blow?"
"My God!' L cried, as the light
broke in upon me all at once. "And
the dress-the strange old-fashioned
dress?"
'The man wears n hunting cos
tune of purple and orange" answered
the doctor.
knew then that Andre de Brissac
had kept his word, and that in the
hour when my life was brightest his
shadow had come between me and
happiness.
showed my wife tie picture in
the library, for I would f,.in assure
myself that there was some error in
my fancy about my cousin. She
shook like leaf when she beheld it.
and clung to me convulsively.
''This is watchcraft, Hector" she
said. "The dress in that picture is
the dress of the man I see in the
pleasuance; bnt the face is not his. "
Then she described to me the face
OF the stranger; and it was my cou-
sins face, line for line-Andre de
Brissac, whom she had never seen in
the flesh. Most vividly of all did she
describe the cruel mark upon his
face, the trace of fierce blow from
an open hand.