ter's child!--go, go, and grace
abounding be with you."

"No, Aunt Bessy, that will never do. I cannot run away. Why, don't you
see for one thing that this will prove what lies they have been telling
about me? They said I was a murderer--" he laughed somewhat wildly as he
spoke--"and here is the murdered woman. And they said there was evidence
coming to prove it. Perhaps she will tell them how it happened, and how
she came to life again. There, you see, there is good in
everything--even in ghosts that come to life again!"

Then his voice dropped, and the color went out of his face.

"What is she doing?" he asked, in a sombre tone.

"She went to sleep on the sofa in the drawing-room. She made me send out
for brandy, and began to rave at me in such a way that I was bound to do
it, just to keep her quiet. And now she is in her drunken sleep!"

Alan shuddered. He knew what that meant.

"Come," he said: "let us go up. We cannot stand here any longer."

They went into his study, which was on the same floor as the
drawing-room, and here Alan sank upon a chair, looking doggedly at the
closed door which separated him from the curse of his existence. After a
while he got up, walked across the landing, and quietly opened the door.

There she lay, a repulsive looking woman, with the beauty of her youth
corrupted into a hateful mask of vice. She had thrown her arms above her
head and seemed to be fast asleep.

He returned to the study, shut the door again, and sat down at the
table, leaning his head upon his hands. Aunt Bessy came and sat beside
him--not to speak, but only that he might know he was not alone.

"That," he muttered to himself at last, "is my wife!"

The old woman at his side trembled, and laid her hand upon his arm.

"I am beginning to know her," he said, after another long pause. "Some
men discover the charms of their wives before marriage; others--the
fools--find them out after. In the first year she was unfaithful to me.
Then she shot me like a dog. What will the end be?"

"It can be nothing worse, my boy. She has ruined you already; she cannot
do it twice. Oh, why did you ever meet her! Why did not Heaven grant
that a good woman, like Lettice Campion----"

"Do not name her here!" he cried sharply. "Let there be something sacred
in the world!"

He looked at his aunt as he spoke; but she did not return his gaze. She
was sitting rigid in her chair, staring over his shoulder with
affrighted eyes. Alan