eye of her employer who stood close beside her, and
seeing no hope in it, Violet fell slowly back. The others, followed, and
the doctor was left alone with his wife. From the distant position
they took, they saw her arms creep round his neck, saw her head fall
confidingly on his breast, then silence settled upon them, and upon all
nature, the gathering twilight deepening, till the last glow disappeared
from the heavens above and from the circle of leafless trees which
enclosed this tragedy from the outside world.

But at last there came a stir, and Dr. Zabriskie, rising up before them
with the dead body of his wife held closely to his breast, confronted
them with a countenance so rapturous that he looked like a man
transfigured.

"I will carry her to the boat," said he. "Not another hand shall
touch her. She was my true wife, my true wife!" And he towered into an
attitude of such dignity and passion that for a moment he took on heroic
proportions and they forgot that he had just proved himself to have
committed a cold-blooded and ghastly crime.

The stars were shining when the party again took their seats in the
boat; and if the scene of their crossing to Jersey was impressive, what
shall be said of the return?

The doctor, as before, sat in the stern, an awesome figure, upon which
the moon shone with a white radiance that seemed to lift his face out
of the surrounding darkness and set it like an image of frozen horror
before their eyes. Against his breast he held the form of his dead wife,
and now and then Violet saw him stoop as if he were listening for some
token of life from her set lips. Then he would lift himself again with
hopelessness stamped upon his features, only to lean forward in renewed
hope that was again destined to disappointment.

Violet had been so overcome by this tragic end to all her hopes, that
her employer had been allowed to enter the boat with her. Seated at her
side in the seat directly in front of the doctor, he watched with
her these simple tokens of a breaking heart, saying nothing till they
reached midstream, when true to his instincts for all his awe and
compassion, he suddenly bent towards him and said:

"Dr. Zabriskie, the mystery of your crime is no longer a mystery to me.
Listen and see if I do not understand your temptation, and how you, a
conscientious and God-fearing man, came to slay your innocent neighbour.

"A friend of yours, or so he called himself, had for a long time