sted your attention under other circumstances, and
made you pause before the upper floor had been reached.

"It was while going up the stairs that you took out your pistol, so that
by the time you arrived at the front room door you held it already drawn
and cocked in your hand. For, being blind, you feared escape on the part
of your victim, and so waited for nothing but the sound of a man's voice
before firing. When, therefore, the unfortunate Mr. Hasbrouck, roused by
this sudden intrusion, advanced with an exclamation of astonishment,
you pulled the trigger, and killed him on the spot. It must have been
immediately upon his fall that you recognized from some word he uttered,
or from some contact you may have had with your surroundings, that you
were in the wrong house and had killed the wrong man; for you cried
out, in evident remorse, 'God! what have I done!' and fled without
approaching your victim.

"Descending the stairs, you rushed from the house, closing the front
door behind you and regaining your own without being seen. But here you
found yourself baffled in your attempted escape, by two things. First,
by the pistol you still held in your hand, and secondly, by the fact
that the key upon which you depended for entering your own door was
so twisted out of shape that you knew it would be useless for you to
attempt to use it. What did you do in this emergency? You have already
told us, though the story seemed so improbable at the time, you found
nobody to believe it but myself. The pistol you flung far away from
you down the pavement, from which, by one of those rare chances which
sometimes happen in this world, it was presently picked up by some late
passer-by of more or less doubtful character. The door offered less
of an obstacle than you had anticipated; for when you turned again you
found it, if I am not greatly mistaken, ajar, left so, as we have reason
to believe, by one who had gone out of it but a few minutes before in a
state which left him but little master of his actions. It was this fact
which provided you with an answer when you were asked how you succeeded
in getting into Mr. Hasbrouck's house after the family had retired for
the night.

"Astonished at the coincidence, but hailing with gladness the
deliverance which it offered, you went in and ascended at once into your
wife's presence; and it was from her lips, and not from those of Mrs.
Hasbrouck, that the cry arose which startled the neighbourh