ays she, "I was woke by the screams
of Mrs. Zebedee. I found her out here on the landing, and Mr. Deluc, in
great alarm, trying to quiet her. Sleeping in the next room he had only
to open his door, when her screams woke him. 'My dear John's murdered!
I am the miserable wretch--I did it in my sleep!' She repeated these
frantic words over and over again, until she dropped in a swoon. Mr.
Deluc and I carried her back into the bedroom. We both thought the poor
creature had been driven distracted by some dreadful dream. But when we
got to the bedside--don't ask me what we saw; the doctor has told you
about it already. I was once a nurse in a hospital, and accustomed, as
such, to horrid sights. It turned me cold and giddy, notwithstanding. As
for Mr. Deluc, I thought _he_ would have had a fainting fit next."

Hearing this, I inquired if Mrs. Zebedee had said or done any strange
things since she had been Mrs. Crosscapel's lodger.

"You think she's mad?" says the landlady. "And anybody would be of
your mind, when a woman accuses herself of murdering her husband in
her sleep. All I can say is that, up to this morning, a more quiet,
sensible, well-behaved little person than Mrs. Zebedee I never met with.
Only just married, mind, and as fond of her unfortunate husband as a
woman could be. I should have called them a pattern couple, in their own
line of life."

There was no more to be said on the landing. We unlocked the door and
went into the room.

II.

HE lay in bed on his back as the doctor had described him. On the left
side of his nightgown, just over his heart, the blood on the linen told
its terrible tale. As well as one could judge, looking unwillingly at
a dead face, he must have been a handsome young man in his lifetime. It
was a sight to sadden anybody--but I think the most painful sensation
was when my eyes fell next on his miserable wife.

She was down on the floor, crouched up in a corner--a dark little woman,
smartly dressed in gay colors. Her black hair and her big brown eyes
made the horrid paleness of her face look even more deadly white than
perhaps it really was. She stared straight at us without appearing to
see us. We spoke to her, and she never answered a word. She might have
been dead--like her husband--except that she perpetually picked at her
fingers, and shuddered every now and then as if she was cold. I went to
her and tried to lift her up. She shrank back with a cry that well-nigh
frightened me-