ielded the
point, and again became the tool of her wily mistress.

When Dainty had been imprisoned a week, Sheila visited her again, and,
as a result, hurried to her mistress with a pale, scared face,
whispering:

"I have earned the promised reward, madame. The girl is out of the way!"

"Dead!" whispered the woman, with an uncontrollable shudder.

"Yes, cowld and dead for hours, pore craythur!" answered the woman,
displaying at last a touch of natural feeling in something like remorse
over her hellish work.

"How?" demanded her mistress, hoarsely.

"By the poison, madame. It was all black on her lips, and spilt on the
bed-clothes, and the vial broken on the floor; but she got enough to
kill her stone dead."

"That is well. If she chose to die by suicide, we are not accountable,"
she said, heartlessly, though her frame shook as with an ague chill.

No amount of sophistry could make her believe herself guiltless of this
terrible deed.

"Will you come and look at the corp', madame? I want you to be satisfied
I'm telling the truth," continued the Irish woman, eagerly; and after a
moment of hesitation, Mrs. Ellsworth decided to go.

It was best to make sure of her cruel work.

In the twilight gloom they stole away, and threaded the dark, noisome
corridors of the ruined wing down to the underground passages, till they
reached the dark cell where poor Dainty's life had ebbed away in
untended illness and fever, till, crazed and delirious, she had ended
all with the tempting draught that promised oblivion of her sorrows in
welcome death.

It was a sight to make the angels weep with pity when Sheila flashed her
light in the gloomy place, and revealed to Mrs. Ellsworth's shrinking
eyes the pale, still form of the girl she had hated and wronged, lying
on the squalid couch, with her golden tresses veiling her wasted form
and framing the fair, dead face like sunshine; the blue eyes closed on
the world that had been so cruel to her; the pale lips stained with the
dark liquid she had drained in the madness of her desperation.

On the chair lay the broken remains of the bread she had been too ill to
swallow; but the bottles of water were quite empty, and perhaps they
could guess how she had drained them and wept for more in the terrible
feverish thirst of her last hours; but they spoke no word to each other
of this, only gazed and gazed with a sort of conscience-stricken awe on
the dead girl, until at last Mrs. Ellsworth