baby
fingers had so often strained to grasp. How well she knew the ghastly
ivory features, the sunken eyeless sockets--of that veritable death's
head? How vividly came back the day, when asleep in her father's arms,
a spark from that grinning skull had fallen on her cheek, and she awoke
to find that fond father bending in remorseful tenderness over her?
Years ago, she had reverently packed the pipe away, with other articles
belonging to the dead, and ignorant that her mother had given it to
Bertie, she deemed it safe in that sacred repository. Now, like the
face of Medusa it glared at her, and that which her father's lips had
sanctified, became the polluted medium of a retributive curse upon his
devoted child. So the Diabolus ex machina, the evil genius of each
human life decrees that the most cruel cureless pangs are inflicted by
the instruments we love best.

Watching for some sign of recognition, Mr. Dunbar's heart was fired
with jealous rage, as he marked the swift change of the prisoner's
countenance; the vanishing of the gleam of hope, the gloomy desperation
that succeeded. The beautiful black brows met in a spasm of pain over
eyes that stared at an abyss of ruin; her lips whitened, she wrung her
hands unconsciously; and then, as if numb with horror, she leaned back
in her chair, and her chin sank until it touched the black ribbon at
her throat. When after a while she rallied, and forced herself to
listen, a pleasant-faced young man was on the witness stand.

"My name is Edgar Jennings, and I live at T----, in Pennsylvania. I am
ticket agent at that point, of----railway. One day, about the last of
October (I think it was on Monday), I was sitting in my office when a
man came in, and asked if I could sell him a ticket to St. Paul. I told
him I only had tickets as far as Chicago, via Cincinnati. He bought one
to Cincinnati and asked how soon he could go on. I told him the train
from the east was due in a few minutes. When he paid for his ticket he
gave me a twenty-dollar gold piece, and his hand shook so, he dropped
another piece of the same value on the floor. His appearance was so
remarkable I noticed him particularly. He was a man about my age, very
tall and finely made, but one half of his face was black, or rather
very dark blue, and he wore a handkerchief bandage-fashion across it.
His left eye was drawn down, this way, and his mouth was one-sided. His
right eye was black, and his hair was very light brown. H