“Woman,” said he, in his deep stern voice, “tell me who and what you are, and why you assume a character of such a repulsive and mysterious nature, when it can entail only misery, shame, and persecution on yourself?  I conjure you, in the name of Him after whose image you are created, to speak truly?”

He paused, and the tall figure stood mute before him.  The silence was dead as death—­every breath was hushed and the persons assembled stood immovable as statues!  Still she spoke not; but the violent heaving of her breast evinced the internal working of some dreadful struggle.  Her face before was pale—­it was now ghastly; her lips became blue, and her eyes vacant.

“Speak!” said he, “I conjure you in the name of the power by whom we live!”

It is probable that the agitation under which she labored was produced by the severe effort made to sustain the unexpected trial she had to undergo.

For some minutes her struggle continued; but having begun at its highest pitch, it gradually subsided until it settled in a calmness which appeared fixed and awful as the resolution of despair.  With breathless composure she turned round, and put back that part of her dress which concealed her face, except the band on her forehead, which she did not remove; having done this she turned again, and walked calmly towards Father Philip, with a deadly smile upon her thin lips.  When within a step of where he stood, she paused, and riveting her eyes upon him exclaimed—­

“Who and what am I?  The victim of infidelity and you, the bearer of a cursed existence, the scoff and scorn of the world, the monument of a broken vow and a guilty life, a being scourged by the scorpion lash of conscience, blasted by periodical insanity, pelted by the winter’s storm, scorched by the summer’s heat, withered by starvation, hated by man, and touched into my inmost spirit by the anticipated tortures of future misery.  I have no rest for the sole of my foot, no repose for a head distracted by the contemplation of a guilty life; I am the unclean spirit which walketh to seek rest and findeth none; I am—­what you have made me! Behold,” she added, holding up the bottle, “this failed, and I live to accuse you.  But no, you are my husband—­though our union was but a guilty form, and I will bury that in silence.  You thought me dead, and you flew to avoid punishment—­did you avoid it?  No; the finger of God has written pain and punishment upon your brow.  I have been in all characters, in all shapes, have spoken with the tongue of a peasant, moved in my natural sphere; but my knees were smitten, my brain stricken, and the wild malady which banishes me from society has been upon me for years.  Such I am, and such, I say, have you made me.  As for you, kind-hearted woman, there was nothing in this bottle but pure water.  The interval of reason returned this day, and having remembered glimpses of our conversation, I came to apologize to you, and to explain the nature of my