!

When he saw I knew, the will which had kept him on his feet gave way,
and he sank to the floor murmuring:

"Take her away! I forgive. Save! Save! She did not know I loved her."

Eva, aghast, staring with set eyes at her work, had not moved from her
crouching posture. But when she saw that speaking head fall back, the
fine limbs settle into the repose of death, a shock went through her
which I thought would never leave her reason unimpaired.

"I've killed him!" she murmured. "I've killed him!" and looking wildly
about, her eyes fell on the cross that hung behind us on the wall. It
seemed to remind her that Felix was a Catholic. "Bring it!" she gasped.
"Let him feel it on his breast. It may bring him peace--hope."

As I rushed to do her bidding, she fell in a heap on the floor.

"Save!" came again from the lips we thought closed forever in death. And
realizing at the words both her danger and the necessity of her not
opening her eyes again upon this scene, I laid the cross in his arms,
and catching her up from the floor, ran with her out of the house. But
no sooner had I caught sight of the busy street and the stream of
humanity passing before us, than I awoke to an instant recognition of
our peril. Setting my wife down, I commanded life back into her limbs by
the force of my own energy, and then dragging her down the steps,
mingled with the crowd, encouraging her, breathing for her, living in
her till I got her into a carriage and we drove away.

For the silence we have maintained from that time to this you must not
blame Mrs. Adams. When she came to herself--which was not for days--she
manifested the greatest desire to proclaim her act and assume its
responsibility. But I would not have it. I loved her too dearly to see
her name bandied about in the papers; and when her father was taken into
our confidence, he was equally peremptory in enjoining silence, and
shared with me the watch I now felt bound to keep over her movements.

But alas! His was the peremptoriness of pride rather than love. John
Poindexter has no more heart for his daughter than he had for his wife
or that long-forgotten child from whose grave this tragedy has sprung.
Had Felix triumphed he would never have wrung the heart of this man. As
he once said, when a man cares for nothing and nobody, not even for
himself, it is useless to curse him.

As for Felix himself, judge him not, when you realize, as you now must,
that his last conscious act