In that impenetrable blackness was a world of imagining whose possibilities of horror were endless.
I almost fancied that I could see with mortal eyes down through that rocky floor to where, in the lonely Crypt, lay, in her tomb of massive stone and under that bewildering coverlet of glass, the woman whom I love.

I could see her beautiful face, her long black lashes, her sweet mouth--which I had kissed--relaxed in the sleep of death.

I could note the voluminous shroud--a piece of which as a precious souvenir lay even then so close to my heart--the snowy woollen coverlet wrought over in gold with sprigs of pine, the soft dent in the cushion on which her head must for so long have lain.

I could see myself--within my eyes the memory of that first visit--coming once again with glad step to renew that dear sight--dear, though it scorched my eyes and harrowed my heart--and finding the greater sorrow, the greater desolation of the empty tomb! There! I felt that I must think no more of that lest the thought should unnerve me when I should most want all my courage.

That way madness lay! The darkness had already sufficient terrors of its own without bringing to it such grim remembrances and imaginings.