were together in spirit that night. I
never knew how dear you were to me, Noah, until that night. How painful
it would be to me to part with you for ever!"

"It was cruel and selfish in me, Sophy, to join your fate to mine,--a
monster, stained with the blackest crimes. But I thought myself secure
from detection; thought that my sin would never find me out, that I had
managed matters with such incomparable skill that discovery was
impossible, that the wide earth did not contain a witness of my guilt.
Fool that I was! The voice of blood never sleeps; from out the silent
dust it calls night and day in its ceaseless appeals for vengeance at
the throne of God. I have heard it in the still dark night, and above
the roar of the crowd in the swarming streets of London at noon-day; and
ever felt a shadowy hand upon my throat, and a cry in my ear--_Thou art
the man_!

"There were moments when, goaded to madness by that voice, I felt
inclined to give myself up to justice, but pride withheld me, and the
dismal fear of those haunting fiends chasing me through eternity, was a
hell I dared not encounter. My soul was parched with an unquenchable
fire; I was too hardened to pray."

"Noah," said Sophy, looking earnestly into his hollow eyes, "you are
not a cruel man; you were kind to your old mother--have been very kind
to me. How came _you_ to commit such a dreadful crime?"

The man groaned heavily, as he replied--

"It was pride,--a foolish, false shame of low birth and honest poverty,
that led me to the desperate act."

"I have felt something of this," said Sophy, and her tears flowed
afresh. "I now see that sinful thoughts are but the seeds of sinful
deeds, ripened and matured by bad passions. Perhaps I only needed a
stronger temptation to be guilty of crimes as great as that of which you
stand charged."

"Sophy," said her husband, solemnly, "I wish my fate to serve as a
warning to others. Listen to me. In the long winter evenings after my
mother died, I wrote a history of my life. I did this in fear and
trembling, lest any human eye should catch me at my task, and learn my
secret. But now that I am called upon to answer for my crime, I wish to
make this sad history beneficial to my fellow-creatures.

"After I am gone, dear Sophy, and you return to F----, lose no time in
taking to your home, and making comfortable, your poor afflicted mother
and sister for the remainder of their days. This key" (and he drew one
from his po