It could not be dead, for assuredly it manifested no sign of decay, and the air about it was quite pure.

Moreover, I could imagine that the sharpest angles of the bones had begun to disappear, that the form was everywhere a little rounder, and the skin had less of the parchment-look: if such change was indeed there, life must be there! the tide which had ebbed so far toward the infinite, must have begun again to flow! Oh joy to me, if the rising ripples of life's ocean were indeed burying under lovely shape the bones it had all but forsaken! Twenty times a day I looked for evidence of progress, and twenty times a day I doubted--sometimes even despaired; but the moment I recalled the mental picture of her as I found her, hope revived.
Several weeks had passed thus, when one night, after lying a long time awake, I rose, thinking to go out and breathe the cooler air; for, although from the running of the stream it was always fresh in the cave, the heat was not seldom a little oppressive.

The moon outside was full, the air within shadowy clear, and naturally I cast a lingering look on my treasure ere I went.

"Bliss eternal!" I cried aloud, "do I see her eyes ?" Great orbs, dark as if cut from the sphere of a starless night, and luminous by excess of darkness, seemed to shine amid the glimmering whiteness of her face.

I stole nearer, my heart beating so that I feared the noise of it startling her.