shores. Meanwhile, all the circumstances of their situation seemed to draw them together; they were like two children who go hand in hand, pressing closely to one another’s side, through a shadow-haunted passage. The image of awful Death, which filled the house, held them united by his stiffened grasp.

These influences hastened the development of emotions that might not otherwise have flowered so. Possibly, indeed, it had been Holgrave’s purpose to let them die in their undeveloped germs. “Why do we delay so?” asked Phoebe. “This secret takes away my breath! Let us throw open the doors!”

“In all our lives there can never come another moment like this!” said Holgrave. “Phoebe, is it all terror? — nothing but terror? Are you