to the Castle in the night, and found the strange man alone. I said:
"That was dangerous, daughter, if not wrong. The man, brave and
devoted as he is, must answer me--your father." At that she was
greatly upset, and before going on with her narrative, drew me close
in her arms, and whispered to me:

"Be gentle to me, father, for I have had much to bear. And be good
to him, for he holds my heart in his breast!" I reassured her with a
gentle pressure--there was no need to speak. She then went on to
tell me about her marriage, and how her husband, who had fallen into
the belief that she was a Vampire, had determined to give even his
soul for her; and how she had on the night of the marriage left him
and gone back to the tomb to play to the end the grim comedy which
she had undertaken to perform till my return; and how, on the second
night after her marriage, as she was in the garden of the Castle--
going, as she shyly told me, to see if all was well with her husband-
-she was seized secretly, muffled up, bound, and carried off. Here
she made a pause and a digression. Evidently some fear lest her
husband and myself should quarrel assailed her, for she said:

"Do understand, father, that Rupert's marriage to me was in all ways
regular, and quite in accord with our customs. Before we were
married I told the Archbishop of my wish. He, as your representative
during your absence, consented himself, and brought the matter to the
notice of the Vladika and the Archimandrites. All these concurred,
having exacted from me--very properly, I think--a sacred promise to
adhere to my self-appointed task. The marriage itself was orthodox
in all ways--though so far unusual that it was held at night, and in
darkness, save for the lights appointed by the ritual. As to that,
the Archbishop himself, or the Archimandrite of Spazac, who assisted