omise from him. And he was determined now that nothing
should move him. So he pretended great weariness, drew a large chair
to her bedside, and said,

"I shall try and sleep a while, darling; if you need me you have only
to speak."

CHAPTER VI.

He was more weary than he knew, and ere he was aware he fell asleep--a
restless, wretched sleep, that made him glad when the half-oblivion
was over. Christine, however, was apparently at rest, and he soon
relapsed into the same dark, haunted state of unconsciousness.
Suddenly he began to mutter and moan, and then to speak with a hoarse,
whispered rapidity that had in it something frightful and unearthly.
But Christine listened with wide-open eyes, and heard with sickening
terror the whole wicked plot. It fell from his half-open lips over and
over in every detail; and over and over he laughed low and terribly at
the coming shame of the hated Donald.

She had not walked alone for weeks, nor indeed been out of her room
for months, but she must go now; and she never doubted her strength.
As if she had been a spirit, she slipped out of bed, walked rapidly
and noiselessly into the long-unfamiliar parlor. A rushlight was
burning, and the key of the old desk was always in it. Nothing
valuable was kept there, and people unacquainted with the secret of
the hidden drawer would have looked in vain for the entrance to it.
Christine had known it for years, but her wifely honor had held it
more sacred than locks or keys could have done. She was aware only
that James kept some private matter of importance there, and she would
as readily have robbed her husband's purse as have spied into things
of which he did not speak to her.

Now, however, all mere thoughts of courtesy or honor must yield before
the alternative in which James and Donald stood. She reached the desk,
drew out the concealing drawer, pushed aside the slide, and touched
the paper. There were other papers there, but something taught her at
once the right one. To take it and close the desk was but the work of
a moment, then back she flew as swiftly and noiselessly as a spirit
with the condemning evidence tightly clasped in her hand.

James was still muttering and moaning in his troubled sleep, and with
the consciousness of her success all her unnatural strength passed
away. She could hardly secrete it in her bosom ere she fell into a
semi-conscious lethargy, through which she heard with terror her
husband's low, weird