rawing herself up, she moved towards him, saying in a sweet womanly
tone that to me spoke volumes:

"It is no friend, Constant, not even an acquaintance. The person whom I
now present to you is an agent from the police. He is here upon a
trivial errand which will be soon finished, when I will join you in your
office."

I knew she was but taking a choice between two evils. That she would
have saved her husband the knowledge of a detective's presence in the
house, if her self-respect would have allowed it, but neither she nor I
anticipated the effect which this presentation produced upon him.

"A police officer," he repeated, staring with his sightless eyes, as if,
in his eagerness to see, he half hoped his lost sense would return. "He
can have no trivial errand here; he has been sent by God Himself to----"

"Let me speak for you," hastily interposed his wife, springing to his
side and clasping his arm with a fervor that was equally expressive of
appeal and command. Then turning to me, she explained: "Since Mr.
Hasbrouck's unaccountable death, my husband has been laboring under an
hallucination which I have only to mention for you to recognize its
perfect absurdity. He thinks--oh! do not look like that, Constant; you
know it is an hallucination which must vanish the moment we drag it
into broad daylight--that he--_he_, the best man in all the world, was
himself the assailant of Mr. Hasbrouck."

Good God!

"I say nothing of the impossibility of this being so," she went on in a
fever of expostulation. "He is blind, and could not have delivered such
a shot even if he had desired to; besides, he had no weapon. But the
inconsistency of the thing speaks for itself, and should assure him that
his mind is unbalanced and that he is merely suffering from a shock that
was greater than we realized. He is a physician and has had many such
instances in his own practice. Why, he was very much attached to Mr.
Hasbrouck! They were the best of friends, and though he insists that he
killed him, he cannot give any reason for the deed."

At these words the Doctor's face grew stern, and he spoke like an
automaton repeating some fearful lesson.

"I killed him. I went to his room and deliberately shot him. I had
nothing against him, and my remorse is extreme. Arrest me, and let me
pay the penalty of my crime. It is the only way in which I can obtain
peace."

Shocked beyond all power of self-control by this repetition of what she
evide