rrible thing to think of the dead coming back to life?"

He tapped lightly upon the tablecloth for a minute with the fingers of
one hand. Then he looked at her again.

"It depends," he said, "upon the manner of their death."

An executioner of the Middle Ages could not have played with his victim
more skillfully. The woman was shivering now, preserving some outward
appearance of calm only by the most fierce and unnatural effort.

"What do you mean by that, Jerry?" she asked. "I was not even
with--Wenham, when he was lost. You know all about it, I suppose,--how
it happened?"

The man nodded thoughtfully.

"I have heard many stories," he admitted. "Before we leave the subject
for ever, I should like to hear it from you, from your own lips."

There was a bottle of champagne upon the table, ordered at the
commencement of the meal. She touched her glass; the waiter filled
it. She raised it to her lips and set it down empty. Her fingers were
clutching the tablecloth.

"You ask me a hard thing, Jerry," she said. "It is not easy to talk
of anything so painful. From the moment we left New York, Wenham
was strange. He drank a good deal upon the steamer. He used to talk
sometimes in the most wild way. We came to London. He had an attack of
delirium tremens. I nursed him through it and took him into the country,
down into Cornwall. We took a small cottage on the outskirts of a
fishing village--St. Catherine's, the place was called. There we lived
quietly for a time. Sometimes he was better, sometimes worse. The doctor
in the village was very kind and came often to see him. He brought a
friend from the neighboring town and they agreed that with complete rest
Wenham would soon be better. All the time my life was a miserable one.
He was not fit to be alone and yet he was a terrible companion. I did my
best. I was with him half of every day, sometimes longer. I was with him
till my own health began to suffer. At last I could stand the solitude
no longer. I sent for my father. He came and lived with us."

"The professor," her listener murmured.

She nodded.

"It was a little better then for me," she went on, "except that poor
Wenham seemed to take such a dislike to my father. However, he hated
every one in turn, even the doctors, who always did their best for
him. One day, I admit, I lost my temper. We quarreled; I could not help
it--life was becoming insupportable. He rushed out of the house--it was
about three o'clock in