“You may,” returned Paula. “If it will give you any relief I will help you bear it willingly.”
“You will! Has heaven then sent me the aid my failing spirits demand? Can I count on you, child? But I will ask for no promise till you have heard my story. To no one have I ever imparted the secret of my life, but from the first moment I saw your fair young face, I felt that through you would come my help, if help ever came to make my final moments easier and my last days less bitter.” And rising up, she led Paula to a door which she solemnly opened. “I am glad that you are here,” said she. “I could never have asked you to come, but since you have braved the dead and crossed this threshold, you must see and know the whole. You will understand my story better.”
Taking her through a dark passage, she threw wide another door, and the parlors of the vanished Japhas opened before them. It was a ghostly vision. A weird twilight scene of clustered