Gladys, in white wimple and close-folded gown of gray, sat on a stool beside the “ one low light," humming softly, her rosary fallen at her feet, — "the Queen looked up, and said, 'O maiden, if indeed you list to sing Sing, and unbind my heart, that I may weep. Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill ! No light had we: for that we do repent, No light, so late! and dark and chill the night! Too late! too late! ye cannot enter now. Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? O let us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet! No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now." Slowly the proud head had drooped, the stately figure sunk, till, as the last lament died away, nothing remained of splendid Guinevere but a hidden face, a cloud of black hair from which the crown had fallen, a heap of rich robes quivering with the stormy sobs of a guilty woman's smitten heart. The curtains closed on this tableau, which was made the more effective by the strong contrast between the despairing Queen and the little novice telling her beads in meek dismay. "Good heavens ! that sounded like the wail of a lost soul! My blood runs cold, and I feel as if I ought to say my prayers," muttered Canaris, with a shiver; for, with his susceptible temperament, music always exerted over him an almost painful power. "If you knew any," sneered Helwyze, whose eyes now glittered with something stronger than excitement. "I do: Gladys taught me, and I am not ashamed to own it." "Much good may it do you." Then, in a quieter tone, he asked, "Is there any song in Elaine'? I forget; and that is the only one we have not had." "There is The Song of Love and Death.' Gladys was learning it lately; and, if I remember rightly, it was heart-rending. I hope she will not sing it, for this sort of thing is rather too much for me;" and Canaris got up to wander aimlessly about, humming the gayest airs he knew, as if to drown the sorrowful "Too late! too late!" still wailing in his ear. By this time Gladys was no longer quite herself an inward excitement possessed her, a wild desire to sing her very heart out came over her, and a strange chill, which she thought a vague presentiment of coming ill, crept through her blood. Every thing seemed vast and awful; every sense grew painfully acute; and she walked as in a dream, so vivid, yet so mysterious, that she did not try to explain it even to herself. Her identity was doubled one Gladys moved and spoke as she was told, a pale, dim figure, of no interest to any one; the other was alive in every fibre, thrilled with intense desire for something, and bent on finding it, though deserts, oceans, and boundless realms of air were passed to gain it. Olivia wondered at her unsuspected power, and felt a little envious of her enchanting gift. But she was too absorbed in "setting the stage," dressing her prima donna, and planning how to end the spectacle with her favorite character of Cleopatra, to do more than observe that Gladys's eyes were luminous and large, her face growing more and more colorless, her manner less and less excited, yet unnaturally calm. "This is the last, and you have the stage alone. Do your best for Felix; then you shall rest and be thanked," she whispered, somewhat anxiously, as she placed Elaine in her tower, leaning against the dark screen, which was unfolded, to suggest the casement she flung back when Launcelot passed below, "And glanced not up, nor waved his hand, Nor bade farewell, but sadly rode away." The "lily maid of Astolat" could not have looked more wan and weird than Gladys, as she stood in her trailing robes of dead white, with loosely gathered locks, hands clasped over the gay bit of tapestry which simulated the cover of the shield, eyes that seemed to see something invisible to those about her, and began her song, in a veiled voice, at once so sad and solemn, that Helwyze held his breath, and Canaris felt as if she called him from beyond the grave: " Sweet is true love, tho' given in vain, in vain ; Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be; Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me: Call and I follow, I follow! let me die!" Carried beyond self-control by the unsuspected presence of the drug, which was doing its work with perilous rapidity, Gladys, remembering only that the last line should be sung with force, and that she sung for Felix, obeyed the wild impulse to let her voice rise and ring out with a shrill, despairing power and passion, which startled every listener, and echoed through the room, like Elaine's unearthly cry of hapless love and death. Olivia dropped her asp, terrified; the maids stared, uncertain whether it was acting or insanity; and Helwyze sprung up aghast, fearing that he had dared too much. But Canaris, seeing only the wild, woful eyes fixed on his, the hands wrung as if in pain, forgot every thing but Gladys, and rushed between the curtains, exclaiming in real terror, "Don't look so! don't sing so! my God, she is dying!" Not dying, only slipping fast into the unconscious stage of the hasheesh dream, whose coming none can foretell but those accustomed to its use. Pale and quiet she lay in her husband's arms, with half-open eyes and fluttering breath, smiling up at him so strangely that he was bewildered as well as panic-stricken. Olivia forgot her Cleopatra to order air and water; the |