how me the way, or shall I find it?"

"Certainly, I will conduct you; but I was about to remark that a death
has just occurred in Ward No. 3, and I am under the impression that it
was the Elm Street case. Madam, you look faint; shall I bring you a
glass of water?"

"No. Show me the body of the dead."

"This way, if you please."

He walked down a dim, low-vaulted passage, and paused at the entrance
of a room lined with cots, where the nurse was slowly passing from
patient to patient.

"Nurse, show this lady to cot No. 7."

Swiftly the tall figure of the visitor glided down the room, and
placing her hand on the arm of the nurse, she said huskily,--

"Where is the man who has just died? Quick! do not keep me in
suspense."

"There, to the right; shall I uncover the face?"

Under the blue check coverlet that was spread smoothly over the cot,
the stiff outlines of a human form were clearly defined; and, when the
nurse stooped, the stranger put out one arm and held him back, while
her whole frame trembled violently.

"Stop! be good enough to leave me."

The attendant withdrew a few yards, and curiously watched the queenly
woman, who stood motionless, with her fingers tightly interlaced.

She was dressed in a gray suit of some shining fabric, and a long
gossamer veil of the same hue hung over her features. After a few
seconds she swept back the veil, and, as she bent forward, a stray
sunbeam dipped through the closed shutters, and flashed across a white
horror-stricken face, crowned with clustering braids of silver hair.

She shut her eyes an instant, grasped the coverlet, and drew it down;
then caught her breath, and looked at the dead.

It was a young, boyish face, horribly swollen and distorted, and
coarse red locks were matted around his brow and temples.

"Thank God, Maurice Carlyle still lives."

She involuntarily raised her hands towards heaven, and the expression
of dread melted from her countenance.

Slowly and reverently she re-covered the corpse, and approached the
nurse.

"I am searching for my husband. Which cot is No. 7?"

"That on your left,--next to the dead."

Mrs. Carlyle turned, and gazed at the bloated crimson mass of disease
that writhed on the narrow bed, and a long shudder crept over her, as
she endeavored to discover in that loathsome hideous visage some
familiar feature--some trace of the manly beauty that once rendered it
so fascinating.

The swollen blood-shot eyes stared v