ife consented to what I
asked of her, consented with the tears running down her beautiful face,
and hot shame flushing red over her neck and breast, consented to
undergo this for me. I threw open the window, and we looked together at
the sky and the dark earth for the last time; it was a fine star-light
night, and there was a pleasant breeze blowing, and I kissed her on her
lips, and her tears ran down upon my face. That night she came down to
my laboratory, and there, with shutters bolted and barred down, with
curtains drawn thick and close, so that the very stars might be shut out
from the sight of that room, while the crucible hissed and boiled over
the lamp, I did what had to be done, and led out what was no longer a
woman. But on the table the opal flamed and sparkled with such light as
no eyes of man have ever gazed on, and the rays of the flame that was
within it flashed and glittered, and shone even to my heart. My wife had
only asked one thing of me; that when there came at last what I had told
her, I would kill her. I have kept that promise.'

* * * * *

There was nothing more. Dyson let the little pocket-book fall, and
turned and looked again at the opal with its flaming inmost light, and
then with unutterable irresistible horror surging up in his heart,
grasped the jewel, and flung it on the ground, and trampled it beneath
his heel. His face was white with terror as he turned away, and for a
moment stood sick and trembling, and then with a start he leapt across
the room and steadied himself against the door. There was an angry hiss,
as of steam escaping under great pressure, and as he gazed, motionless,
a volume of heavy yellow smoke was slowly issuing from the very centre
of the jewel, and wreathing itself in snake-like coils above it. And
then a thin white flame burst forth from the smoke, and shot up into the
air and vanished; and on the ground there lay a thing like a cinder,
black and crumbling to the touch.

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