red over the floor. We glanced at the bed, and the maid
uttered a wild scream, and even I felt my blood run cold; for there lay
the form of the lady, still, cold, pallid, livid, like that of a corpse
many hours dead. No sign of Blondelle was to be seen about the chamber."

"Oh! had he murdered her and fled?" gasped Sybil, with a half-suppressed
hysterical sob.

Mr. Berners passed his arm around her shoulders and drew her head down
upon his breast, and signed for the landlord to proceed with his story.

"Sir," continued Mr. Judson, "I went up to that bedside in the worst
panic I ever felt in all my life. My heart was hammering at my ribs like
a trip-hammer. First I took up the white hand that was hanging
helplessly down by the side of the bed; and I was glad to find that it
was limber, though cold as ice. Life might not be extinct. I ran down
and dispatched several servants in different directions for physicians,
being determined to insure the attendance of one, even at the risk of
bringing a dozen, and having all their fees to pay."

"You never thought of fees, I'll guarantee," said Mr. Berners.

"Indeed I did not. I thought only of the lady. I sent my old mother to
her bedside, with a request that she would keep everybody else out of
the room until the arrival of a physician, and to let nothing be
touched; for you see, sir, I did not know but what the attendance of a
coroner would be called for as well."

"Oh, how terrible!" murmured Sybil, from her shelter on her husband's
breast.

"Yes, madam, but not so terrible as we feared. Not to tire you with too
long an account of this bad business, I will tell you at once the result
of the physician's examination. It was, that this death-like sleep or
coma of the lady was produced by some powerful narcotic, but by what or
for what purpose administered, he could not discover. The maid was
questioned as to whether her mistress was in the habit of using any form
of opium, and answered that she certainly was not. Well, madam, the
doctor left the lady under the care of my mother, with directions to
watch her pulse, and on any indication of its failure, to summon him
immediately."

"She was in danger, then?"

"Apparently. My mother watched beside her bed all that night; the lady
did not awake until the next morning--that was the Tuesday; and the poor
soul thought it was Monday! You see twenty-four hours had been lost to
her consciousness."

"And her infamous husband?" in