re, closer to his heart. There was no iron
muzzle between them now. She smiled, and whispered, softly:--

"In the heart of the woods. O Love; O Love!"

And seeing that he understood, she laid her hand upon his bosom,
gasped once, and the little hands were safe. They would never "go
wrong" now, never. Even love, which tempts the strongest into sin,
could never harm them now, those little dead hands.

"In the heart of the woods." It was there they buried her, beside that
broken-hearted one whose life went with the tidings from old Shiloh,
in the little mountain graveyard in the woods between Dan and
Beersheba.

As for him, her murderer, they said, "the accident quite drove him
mad." Perhaps it did; he thought so, often; only that he never called
it by the name of accident.

"It was God's plan for helping me," he told himself during those slow
hours of torture that followed. There were days and weeks when the
very mention of the place would tear his very soul. Then the old
craving returned. Drink; he could forget, drown it all if only he
could return to the old way of forgetting. But something held him
back. What was it? God? No, no. God did not care for such as he, he
told himself. He was alone; alone forever now. One night there was a
storm, the cedars were lashed and broken, and the windows rattled and
shook with the fury of the wind. The rain beat against the roof in
torrents. The night was wild, as he was. Oh, he, too, could tear, and
howl, and shriek. Tear up the very earth, he thought, if only he let
his demon loose.

He arose and threw on his clothes. He wanted whiskey; he was tired of
the struggle, the madness, the despair. A mile beyond there was a
still, an illicit concern, worked only at night. He meant to find it.
His brain was giving way, indeed. Had already given way, he thought,
as he listened to the wind calling him, the storm luring him on to
destruction. The very lightning beckoned him to "come and be healed."
Healed? Aye, he knew what it was that healed the agonies of mind which
physics could not reach. He knew, he knew. He had been a fool to think
he would forego this healing.

He laughed as he tore open the door and stepped out into the night.
The cool rain struck upon his burning brow as he plunged forward into
the arms of the darkness. He had gone but two steps when the fever
that had mounted to his brain began to cool. And the wind--he paused.
Was it speaking to him, that wild, midnight wi