o break the skein of unpleasant
associations, but she moved away, and said in a hard, almost defiant,
voice:--

"'There is one more; tell me its tale if you can, and if not----'

"She paused while I took the fine lace and lawn into my fingers; it
seemed a summer dress, scarcely crushed; in front, however, and on the
sleeve was a splash of dull red-brown.

"'Paint?' I suggested, 'or blood. An accident, perhaps?' and in
questioning I met her eyes.

"'Don't, don't!' I cried, 'don't speak!' I flung myself back in the
chair, and covered my face to avoid the sight of hers--the expression of
horror that was staring from it.

"'I will, I must speak. Yes, blood; his blood. Oh!' she exclaimed,
standing in front of me in that Cassandra-like attitude I had noticed
before, 'I can see it now. George had gone to the country--so he had
said--and I, to pass the time, dined with an uncle at Bignards. You know
the room--the thousand lights and loaded tables, the chink of glass and
glow of silver--the gay and brilliant company that is always there? We
dined, and were leaving afterwards for the Opera. My uncle passed out
first, and I was about to follow him, when, at a little table _a deux_,
I saw George and her; George looking down, down into her eyes and her
bosom, with a hot red flush in his cheeks, and a lifted wine-glass in
his hand. I don't know what happened; I burst between them, flung the
glass from his fingers, and then----'

"I thought she must scream, but only a gasp escaped her. She looked at
something on the ground and added in an awed, strangely intense voice,
'He was dead!'

"The tone compelled me to her side; a torrent of agony seemed frozen at
her lips.

"'Hush! Hush!' I implored. 'Your brain was deranged: you had been
ill----'

"I had recovered. Did you never read of the Reymond affair? I am that
miserable woman. Lucky, some people have called me, because in France
they are human and class such deeds as _crimes passionels_.'

"My words I cannot remember. They were violent reiterations of love,
assurances that I had read and recalled the catastrophe--the fatal
result of a glass splint probing an artery--and had pitied her before I
knew her. I protested, raved, threatened, vowed I had come with the one
object of linking my life to hers, and that now, more than ever, my mind
was fixed.

"But she remained cold, almost severe. 'You remember,' she said, 'how I
fled from you to spare myself a Tantalus torture--a h