ngly by the
little, soft one of his daughter.

Charlotte led her father into the dining-room, which was warm and
light. There was a Franklin stove in there, and a bright fire burned
in it.

"The furnace fire had gone out, and I could not do anything with
that, so I made a fire in this stove," Charlotte explained. "I made
it burn very easily." She spoke with a childish pride. It was, in
fact, the first time she had ever made a fire. "The fire in the
kitchen-range was low, too," she said, "but I put some coal on and I
poked it, and there is a beautiful bed of coals to cook the
beefsteak." Then Charlotte caught herself up short. "Oh, the
beefsteak will burn!" she cried, anxiously. "Do sit down, papa, and
wait a minute. I must see to the beefsteak."

With that Charlotte ran into the kitchen, and Carroll dropped into
the nearest chair. He felt dazed and happy, with the happiness of a
man waking to consciousness from an awful incubus of nightmare, and
yet a deadly sense of guilt and shame was beginning to steal over
him. That bottle of chloroform in his pocket stung his soul like the
worm, which gnaweth the conscience unceasingly, of the Scriptures. He
thought vaguely of removing it, of concealing it somewhere. He looked
at the china-closet, the door of which stood ajar; he looked at the
sideboard with its glitter of cut glass and silver; but reflected
that Charlotte might directly go to either and discover it, and make
inquiries. He kept it in his pocket.

He heard Charlotte running about in the kitchen. He continued to
smell the broiling beefsteak and tea, and also toast. He became
conscious of a healthy hunger. He had eaten nothing since morning,
and very little then. Then he gathered his faculties together enough
to wonder how this had come about; how and why Charlotte had
returned. But he sat still in the chair beside the Franklin stove. He
gazed steadily into the red glow of the coals, and a strange dimness
came over his vision. A species of counter-hypnotism seemed to
overcome him. He had been in an abnormal state, superinduced by
unhealthy suggestions of the imagination acting upon a mind ill at
ease; now his natural state gradually asserted itself. His mind swung
slowly back to its normal poise. When Charlotte entered, bearing a
platter of beefsteak, he turned to her quite naturally.

"How did it happen, darling?" he asked.

Charlotte looked at him, and her face, which had been anxious and
puzzled, lightened