implored their assistance. For a considerable time she remained in an agony of despair.
At last, as softly as was possible, she felt for the door, and having found it, entered trembling into the vault from whence she had heard the sigh and steps. It gave her a kind of momentary joy to perceive an imperfect ray of clouded moonshine gleam from the roof of the vault, which seemed to be fallen in, and from whence hung a fragment of earth or building, she could not distinguish which, that appeared to have been crushed inwards. She advanced eagerly towards this chasm, when she discerned a human form standing close against the wall.
She shrieked, believing it the ghost of her betrothed Conrad. The figure, advancing, said, in a submissive voice—
“Be not alarmed, Lady; I will not injure you.”
I
