through the house opened first into the passage-way connecting Mr.
Leavenworth's bedroom and library, and, secondly, into the closet of
the large spare room adjoining mine. Hastily unlocking the door of
the communication between the rooms, I took my position in the closet.
Instantly the sound of voices reached my ears; all was open below, and
standing there, I was as much an auditor of what went on between Mary
and her uncle as if I were in the library itself. And what did I hear?
Enough to assure me my suspicions were correct; that it was a moment of
vital interest to her; that Mr. Leavenworth, in pursuance of a threat
evidently made some time since, was in the act of taking steps to change
his will, and that she had come to make an appeal to be forgiven her
fault and restored to his favor. What that fault was, I did not learn.
No mention was made of Mr. Clavering as her husband. I only heard her
declare that her action had been the result of impulse, rather than
love; that she regretted it, and desired nothing more than to be free
from all obligations to one she would fain forget, and be again to her
uncle what she was before she ever saw this man. I thought, fool that I
was, it was a mere engagement she was alluding to, and took the insanest
hope from these words; and when, in a moment later I heard her uncle
reply, in his sternest tone, that she had irreparably forfeited her
claims to his regard and favor, I did not need her short and bitter cry
of shame and disappointment, or that low moan for some one to help her,
for me to sound his death-knell in my heart. Creeping back to my own
room, I waited till I heard her reascend, then I stole forth. Calm as
I had ever been in my life, I went down the stairs just as I had seen
myself do in my dream, and knocking lightly at the library door, went
in. Mr. Leavenworth was sitting in his usual place writing.

"Excuse me," said I as he looked up, "I have lost my memorandum-book,
and think it possible I may have dropped it in the passage-way when I
went for the wine." He bowed, and I hurried past him into the closet.
Once there, I proceeded rapidly into the room beyond, procured the
pistol, returned, and almost before I realized what I was doing, had
taken up my position behind him, aimed, and fired. The result was what
you know. Without a groan his head fell forward on his hands, and Mary
Leavenworth was the virtual possessor of the thousands she coveted.

My first thought wa