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of the members of the family, who, by the stern mandate of death, were consigned to that dismal company of fleshless forms.

Slowly and solemnly the procession took its way across the chapel and along the ancient aisle, towards the door which led to the small oratory; which presented, with its one lamp dependant from the mouldering ceiling, a striking contrast to the broad glare of dazzling light that illuminated the chapel.

The work which was to be transacted in that oratory could not bear the light, and, by the express orders of the baron, it had been thus dimly illuminated for the approaching scene.

The change from the glare of the chapel to the subdued twilight of the oratory was rather grateful than otherwise to the feelings of Caroline, and she felt grateful for the change, without pausing to analyze the motives of her pleasure.

By the orders of the baron, the torches were extinguished, all but one, as the procession reached the oratory door.

Now those who bore the bier slowly entered, and deposited their burden close to the slab of black marble which led to the vault.

A dead silence ensued of some moments� duration, and then there advanced, from the deep shadow and obscurity, one clad in the garments of a priest.

Caroline looked fixedly at him, to try if she could identify him as the same who had appeared under such unholy auspices in the chapel when she

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was rescued by Claudio from a ceremony as futile as it was a mockery of a blessed ordinance of the Almighty.

She strongly suspected him to be the same, and yet she could not positively assure herself that it was so, on account of the very short time she had to observe him on the former occasion, and the pains he had taken to conceal his face from observation.

CHAPTER XLVII.

"HOLY father," said Count Durlack, in a tone of mock reverence to the priest, "we require your prayers for the soul of the departed."

"They are yours," answered the priest, in a low voice.

The attendants ranged themselves on each side of the bier, and the priest in a low monotonous voice, repeated a prayer, and affected to cast some holy water from a small phial upon the corpse.

The attendants looked at the baron as if for instructions what to do, and the priest folding his cossack so as nearly to conceal his face, stood rigid and as still as a statue.

"You have commended the lost soul to Heaven?" said Count Durlack, addressing the priest in a whining tone.

"I have my son," answered the ecclesiastic. "You have now but to consign the poor mortal remains to the tomb."

"Your church," said the baron, "will be unceasing in its prayers till the soul of the baroness is out of purgatory?"

"You may rely upon the intercessions of the church," said the priest.

"Do you wish further prayers?" said the baron, addressing Caroline.

"No," she answered; "the actions during life of a pure spirit, are the most acceptable offerings at the throne of the Almighty."

"Remove the slab," cried the baron, in a tone of impatience. Then in an under tone to the count:�"You see, count, she will not be moved either to blame or praise."

"Mind it not," answered the count, in a similar tone; "this apathy will give way yet, and her fortitude will desert her."

The baron shook his head, as if still in great doubt.

Two men now advanced with the necessary implements for raising the marble slab which concealed the entrance to the vault of the Zindorfs.

They soon raised it, and Caroline saw beneath the marble stairs which led to the last home of her aunt.

A rush of fetid air came from the vault, and Caroline, as well as every one else, drew back several paces, to allow of the vault becoming somewhat purified before they ventured to descend.

The baron preserved a gloomy silence, and nothing was heard but the

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suppressed whisperings of the domestics, among whom Namine continued to make her voice the most conspicuous.

"Silence!" cried the baron. "Descend with the bier."

The priest glanced at the count inquiringly.

"Not yet," said Durlack, looking at Caroline.

The attendants raised the bier, and slowly descended with it to the vault. Caroline followed, and shortly the whole party were assembled in the last resting place of the Zindorfs.

It was a melancholy sight to look around upon the mouldering remains of mortals in that dismal place of sepulchre.

When the dead are confined in coffins, and the progress of decomposition is most zealously hidden from the gaze of the living, then�even then the mind is oppressed with a thousand gloomy horrors upon visiting such a place as that in which Caroline Mecklenburgh now found herself. But the custom of allowing the dead to repose upon marble slabs, merely covered by the pall, which was nearly as perishable as the ghastly object it only partially hid, added tenfold to the horrors of the place.

The dim light which pervaded the vault from the single torch which the baron permitted to be brought into it, shed but an uncertain radiance upon the numerous tombs which appeared ranged along in solemn order in the house of the dead.

Caroline shuddered as she glanced around her, and marked the different stages of decay which the various tombs presented.

In some the rich pall had actually rolled from the body, and there lay upon the marble slab but a mass of festering bones.

In others the pall had shrunk down as the body had slowly wasted away, and the dim outline of the skeleton might still be traced beneath its close folds.

There was one pall which retained much of its original colour, and although it had sunk close to the still proportions of the form which slept the long sleep of death beneath it, was evident from the comparative freshness of its appearance, that that purple covering hid from sight the last tenant of that melancholy abode.

Caroline gazed fixedly on this tomb, for she thought that it must be that of the poor murdered Sophia, the first baroness of Zindorf, the particulars of which melancholy fate she had learned from the manuscript, and in whom she felt an unusual interest, on account of the circumstances affecting Claudio, which were involved in the history of her death.

The attendant now deposited the bier on which lay the remains of Caroline�s ill-fated aunt in the centre of the vault.

The priest again advanced, and murmured, what Caroline supposed was another prayer, but his voice was so indistinct, that with her utmost stretch of attention, she could not catch a single word of the subject matter of his mumbled and low oration.

The Count Durlack advanced boldly into the vault, but she observed that the baron came no further than the last stair which led into the place.

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There he stood, and as the light from the torch which was carried by the ferocious Roland, fell upon his face, Caroline could see that it was of a death-like paleness; and his eyes were glaringly fixed upon the tomb which from its comparative freshness had attracted her marked attention.

Caroline fancied that she saw an inscription upon the side of the marble slab on which, she supposed, the remains of the first baroness rested, and she stooped to read it.

The baron appeared to mistake her movement, and his fears construed it into an intention to raise the pall from the sad remnant of mortality, that slept so still beneath it

"Hold! hold!" he cried, or rather shrieked. "What would you do?"

As he spoke, he rushed two or three steps up the staircase.

His exclamation drew all eyes upon Caroline, who was kneeling by the tomb.

"What is the meaning of this?" said Count Durlack, glancing from the baron to Caroline.

"She�she�" said the baron, "was going to lift the�the pall."

"No," answered Caroline; "I was not; I merely wished to read an inscription, which I see is upon the side of this slab."

The baron�s fears seemed to subside, and he once more took his station on the lowest step of the staircase.

At a signal from the Count Durlack, the attendants lifted the body of the baroness on to a marble slab which was vacant and arranged; and arranged the pall in the position it was to remain in till the hand of time should destroy its fabric and reduce it to the dust.

"Let us hence," said the count.

The torch-bearer, Roland, with a grim smile, turned to leave the vault.

This was the most trying moment for Caroline. She had hitherto supported herself with firmness, and at least outward composure; but now that all was over�now that she was about to leave for ever to the silent tomb, and the companionship of its ghostly occupants, the remains of the being she had known, and despite her weaknesses loved in life, her spirits failed her, and she burst into a passion of tears and sobs.

"My poor�poor aunt," she said; "the last one in the world to whom I can claim kindred, gone from me for ever!"

The Count Durlack eagerly approached Caroline.

"This is indeed," he said, "a dismal resting place for the loved and honoured."

"It is," said Caroline, hardly conscious who it was that spoke.

"To know," continued the count, "that one we have known�one from whose lips we have heard words of affection and sympathy, and who we would have guarded from the slightest harm with our lives. To know that such a one lies here, cold and inanimate."

"Oh, horrible thought!" said Caroline.

"In darkness and gloom," continued Durlack.

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Caroline could only reply by her sobs, and the count went on.

"Never more to be cheered by the light of day; never more to hear the voice of affection."

"Never! never!" said the priest.

"A prey to vile corruption."

Dismally tolled the chapel bell at this moment. Caroline started at the sound. The count was standing close to her, and his face wore an appearance that the arch enemy of mankind might have envied.

"The food of loathsome reptiles," he said.

Caroline shuddered.

"No more, sir," she said, making an effort to overcome her emotion. "Death is in itself sufficiently awful; it needs no artificial horrors to be accumulated round it. Cease this strain."

The baron now spoke apparently to an attendant in the chapel above.

"Let," he said, "the black banner be hoisted on the warder�s tower; there, according to custom, must it float for twelve hours."

As he spoke, he quickly ascended to the chapel.

Caroline immediately followed, and shortly the whole party stood by the brink of the entrance to the vault.

"There is nothing more?" said the baron, addressing the priest.

"Nothing," answered he. "My prayers shall be incessant for the soul of the departed baroness."

The baron made a sign to the attendants and they prepared to replace the black marble slab over the entrance to the vault.

The Count Durlack stepped close to the priest.

Caroline saw that he whispered something to him, and the priest nodded.

The baron looked down, and Caroline fancied she could see him tremble.

"Be firm!" said a voice close to her.

She turned, and saw Euphoric, who gave her a glance of intelligence, and then drew back into the gloom and darkness which pervaded the oratory.

Caroline felt a sensation of uneasiness she could not define. She felt conscious something was about to occur, in which she would be in some manner concerned, but what it could be, she strove in vain to conjecture.

The attendants raised the slab, and were upon the point of placing it in its former position, when Count Durlack said in a low tone to the priest, which would not have reached Caroline�s ears but for the death-like stillness that reigned in the place�

"Now. �Tis time."

"Hold!" cried the priest immediately.

The attendants paused with the uplifted slab.

"Before we close this abode of death," said the priest, "we have a sacred duty to perform."

The slab was laid down again by the side of the aperture on a sign being given to the attendants by Count Durlack.

"What duty?" cried Caroline.

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"Daughter," said the priest, "the departed spirit of her who sleeps beneath this marble floor, ere that it winged its flight from earth, expressed in all the agony of death some fervent wishes."

Caroline felt all her emotions revive at this speech of the priest, and she said, in choking accents�

"The wishes of my aunt uttered in so solemn a moment should be laws to us all. Oh, say�what were her commands? for such they should be to those who honour her memory."

Caroline looked towards the priest as she spoke, and she thought she saw him tremble. The Count Durlack was standing close by him, and as her eye fell for a moment upon his face as it passed over the shoulder of the priest, she absolutely started back at its expression of fiendish malignity and unholy triumph.

The baron spoke not, but retired further and further into the deep gloom which reigned in the oratory, save just when the faint rays from the torch fell upon the marble floor. The priest continued,�

"She wished a chapel to be erected for aged pilgrims on the frontiers of Sardinia, so that those who had been to visit the holy sepulchre should find an altar to their pure faith on the confines of that holy soil."

"This should be done," said Count Durlack.

"It shall," cried the baron, from the darkness in which he placed himself.

"What more?" said Caroline.

"It was her great desire," continued the priest, "that the monks of the Convent of the Holy St. Ignatius should pray for her soul, and she wished her Lord, the noble Baron Zindorf, to bestow a fitting benefaction on the convent."

"It shall be done," said the baron.

"But," pursued the priest, "with her dying breath�that breath which ought alone to have wafted to Heaven the name of the blessed Virgin�she uttered a wish, a strong, trembling wish."

Caroline looked up enquiringly.

"That wish," continued the priest, "was so fervent, that it came almost between the service and her God�"

"Oh, speak on," cried Caroline. "What was it?"

"She conjured her niece, Caroline Mecklenburgh, by every tie of kindred and dear affection which she owed, to comply with her last request�"

"Keep me not in this suspense," cried Caroline, "but tell me at once the nature of this solemn appeal to me."

The priest was silent for a moment, and Caroline, whose eyes were before bent to the ground, raised them to see what was the cause of his pausing.

She saw the priest trembling, and the Count Durlack, his face distorted with passion, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, whispering to him.

"What was the request?" said Caroline.

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"It was this," resumed the priest. "On the verge of eternity, the Baroness of Zindorf conjured her niece, Caroline Mecklenburgh, to wed, within one hour after the performance of the mournful ceremony we have now brought a to close, the Count Durlack, a noble and a gallant gentleman, so she said, should her soul know peace in another world."

"It shall be done," again cried the baron, stepping forward to the brink of the vault.

" �Tis false!" whispered Euphoric in Caroline�s ear.

She repeated the words herself.

" �Tis false��tis false!" cried Caroline. "False as the hearts of those who would practice upon my feelings to destroy me."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

A DEAD silence of some minutes duration now ensued, and Caroline�s sudden and apparently unexpected denial of the truth of what the priest said, seemed to have produced some confusion in the tactics of the Count Durlack and his unscrupulous associates.

"How dare you," said the baron, addressing Caroline, "deny the statement of this holy man?"

"It cannot be," answered Caroline. "It is untrue."

"Daughter," said the priest, "beware what you say."

"Were you present at my aunt�s death?" asked Caroline suddenly of the priest.

"I�I�" stammered the priest.

"Yes, he was," cried Count Durlack. "He administered to her the last consolation of religion."

"Count Durlack," said Caroline, "I am not so weak as you suppose me. My aunt abhorred you as I do."

"That is not true," cried the baron. "The Count Durlack is my friend, and as such he was respected by the deceased baroness."

"I have yet to learn," said Caroline, indignant at the attempt which had been made upon her credulity, "that the friends of the Baron Zindorf carry with them any title of respect."

"You have heard the dying request of the baroness," said the priest. "Respect it, lady, as you wish for peace here and hereafter."

"Do you acknowledge being present at my aunt�s death?" asked Caroline.

"Yes," answered the priest, reluctantly.

"And you heard her say those words?"

"I did."

"Who else was present?"

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"The Count Durlack," said the baron, "and myself."

"And you all heard this request?"

"We did," answered the baron, "and we now wait its delightful fulfilment."

"Stay, baron," cried Caroline. "I ask you a question."

"Speak, Caroline Mecklenburgh," cried the baron.

"Which of you three who were present at my aunt�s death can lay his hand upon his heart and say �I am not her murderer?�"

"Murderer!" cried the baron.

"Aye, murderer," repeated Caroline. "Which of your hands have left the livid marks of violence upon the poor corpse, that might even now, were such things permitted by Providence, rise from these steps to accuse her murderers of maligning her memory?"

The baron started back a pace or two from the entrance to the vault, as if he feared that the miracle of the appearance of the deceased baroness might actually take place.

"What is the meaning of all this?" said the Count Durlack.

"The meaning is," said Caroline, "that my aunt was murdered, and you, together with this priest and the Baron Zindorf, were present at the scene."

The count cast a suspicious glance at the baron, and said�

"Of any contrivance against the life of the Baroness Zindorf, I am as innocent as thou can be, Caroline Mecklenburgh."

"And I," said the baron, hurriedly�"I was as much surprised to be told she had died suddenly as any one could be."

"Indeed, baron!" said Caroline; "and yet you were present and heard her last request�her dying words?"

The baron looked confused, and did not answer.

"What is your distinct charge, Caroline Mecklenburgh?" said the count. "We heard nothing of all this until your aunt requested something of you, to which your present inclination does not lead you."

"I was not called upon to resist your building chapels, or endowing convents," answered Caroline; "but when I saw that such statements were only the precursors of the monstrous imposition intended to be practised upon me at a supposed moment of weakness, I was bound to speak out and denounce the impious fraud."

The count whispered a word or to the baron.

Caroline heard him answer, "On my soul, count, no."

"You say, Caroline Mecklenburgh," said the count, loudly, "that there are marks of violence on your aunt�s body?"

"I do," answered Caroline. "God alone can know the guilty. The marks of her murderer�s gripe are upon her neck."

"This must be some delusion," said the baron.

"Would to heaven it were!" answered Caroline.

Count Durlack again looked suspiciously at the baron.