w it aside slowly, as though held by the
restraining clutch of some one behind me. And I was so held, but not
by what was visible--rather by the terrors which gather in the soul
at the summons of some dreadful doom. I could not meet the certainty
without some preparation. I released another strand of hair; then
the side of a cheek, half buried out of sight in the loosened locks
and bulging pillows; then, with prayers to God for mercy, an icy
brow; two staring eyes--which having seen I let the cushion drop,
for mercy was not to be mine.

It was _she_, she, indeed! and judgment was glassed in the look I
met--judgment and nothing more kindly, however I might appeal to
Heaven for mercy or whatever the need of my fiercely startled and
repentant soul.

Dead! Adelaide! the woman I had planned to wrong that very night, and who
had thus wronged me! For a moment I could take in nothing but this one
astounding fact, then the how and the why woke in maddening curiosity
within me, and seizing the cushion, I dragged it aside and stared down
into the pitiful and accusing features thus revealed, as though to tear
from them the story of the crime which had released me as I would not
have been released, no, not to have had my heart's desire in all the
fulness with which I had contemplated it a few short hours before.

But beyond the ever accusing, protuberant stare, those features told
nothing; and steeling myself to the situation, I made what observation I
could of her condition and the surrounding circumstances. For this was my
betrothed wife. Whatever my intentions, however far my love had strayed
under the spell cast over me by her sister,--the young girl who had just
passed out,--Adelaide and I had been engaged for many months; our wedding
day was even set.

But that was all over now--ended as her life was ended: suddenly,
incomprehensibly, and by no stroke of God. Even the jewel on her finger
was gone, the token of our betrothal. This was to be expected. She would
be apt to take it off before committing herself to a fate that proclaimed
me a traitor to this symbol. I should see that ring again. I should find
it in a letter filled with bitter words. I would not think of it or of
them now. I would try to learn how she had committed this act, whether by
poison or--

It must have been by poison; no other means would suggest themselves to
one of her refined sense; but if so, why those marks on her neck, growing
darker and darker a