mean but one thing--she had found temptation too much for
her, and she had come back to tell me so in obedience to her
promise.

"I will go meet Mrs. Ocumpaugh," I said.

The man stared.

"I will go meet Mrs. Ocumpaugh now," I repeated, and tried to rise.

But my limbs refused; death had entered my heart, and it was some
few minutes before I found myself upon the lawn outside.

When I got there I was trembling and so uncertain of movement that
I tottered at the gate. But seeing signs of her presence within, I
straightened myself and went in.

She was standing at the extreme end of the room when I entered, in
the full light of the solitary moonbeam which shot in at the
western casement. She had thrown aside her hat and coat, and never
in all my life had I seen anything so ethereal as the worn face and
wasted form she thus disclosed. Had it not been for the haunting
and pathetic smile which by some freak of fate gave poignancy to
her otherwise infantile beauty, I should not have known the woman
who stood there with my name formed on her lips.

"Destroyed!" was my thought; and the rage which I felt that moment
against fate flushed my whole being, and my arms went up, not in
threat against her, but to an avenging Heaven, when I heard an
impetuous rush, an angry growl, and the delicate, trembling figure
went down under the leap of the monstrous animal which I had taught
to love me, but could never teach to love her.

In horror and unspeakable anguish of soul I called off the dog;
and, stooping with bitter cries, I took her in my arms.

"Hurt?" I gasped. "Hurt, Aline?" I looked at her anxiously.

"No," she whispered, "happy." And before I realized my own feelings
or the passion with which I drew her to my breast, she had nestled
her head against my heart, smiled and died.

The shock of the dog's onslaught had killed her.

I would not believe it at first, but when I was quite sure, I took
out the pistol I carried in my breast and shot the cowering brute
midway between the eyes.

When this was done, I turned back to her. There was no light but
the moon, and I needed no other. The clear beams falling on her
face made her look pure and stainless and sweet. I could almost
have loved her again as I marked the tender smile which li