stooped and placed her hand
on the white breast.

"Yes, she is gone, poor girl! Her heart is cold and still, her form
seems quite rigid; she must have been dead quite a long while," she
muttered, in a tone of relief.

In reality, it was but a few hours ago that Dainty had swallowed the
laudanum while just sinking into the stupor of a malignant fever; but to
all intents and purposes, in the garish light, she looked like a corpse
of ten hours' duration.

And now came an important question--how to dispose of the fair, dead
girl; for it would never do to leave her here, lest the body be
discovered in future, and the crime traced to the door of those who were
responsible for her death.

Sheila Kelly had a plan, and she quickly proposed it.

"Yer want iverybody to know she's dead, because if Mr. Ellsworth gets
well, he'll be searching for her till kingdom come, unless he knows the
truth."

"Yes, you are right; although there is not one chance in a hundred of
his recovery. He just lies with closed lips and eyes like a breathing
corpse," said Mrs. Ellsworth, impatiently.

"I was a-thinkin' this," said Sheila. "It's a dark night, and there'll
be no moon till midnight. I can carry her body in me arrums down to the
road, and lay her under the tree by the creek, with the bottle of
laudanum in her hand, and a little note, if ye choose to write it,
a-sayin' she is deserted by her lover, who refused to make her an honest
wife, so she chooses ter die. Then the coroner's 'quest will find the
poison in her stomach, and all is over, and no suspicion of our part in
her taking off."

"Capital, Sheila!" cried her mistress, approvingly, though she added: "I
hate the sensation that will follow the finding of the body; but it is
best, as you say, to let the world know she is dead; then, should
Lovelace survive, he can not doubt he is a widower, if he was ever
married. So you may carry out your plan, Sheila, and come to me at once
for your pay."

CHAPTER XXV.

AMONG STRANGERS.

The dark, calm, dewy night closed down presently, and Sheila Kelly
promptly finished her wicked work.

The reward was immediately paid into her hands, and she departed in
haste from Ellsworth to spend it in riotous living.

The night was warm and sultry, and few people strayed abroad; so out in
the road, on the grassy bank by a little purling creek, there lay for
hours the motionless form of a seemingly dead girl, by her side a bottle
of laudan