a knife. The sound of her own voice, sunk to a whisper--her voice
only uttering that one word, Death--rushed in her ears like the rushing
of a wind. She dragged herself to the bedside, and rested her head
against it, sitting on the floor. "Oh, my life! my life!" she thought;
"what is my life worth, that I cling to it like this?"

An interval passed, and she felt her strength returning. She raised
herself on her knees and hid her face on the bed. She tried to pray--to
pray to be forgiven for seeking the refuge of death. Frantic words burst
from her lips--words which would have risen to cries, if she had not
stifled them in the bed-clothes. She started to her feet; despair
strengthened her with a headlong fury against herself. In one moment she
was back at the table; in another, the poison was once more in her hand.

She removed the cork and lifted the bottle to her mouth.

At the first cold touch of the glass on her lips, her strong young life
leaped up in her leaping blood, and fought with the whole frenzy of its
loathing against the close terror of Death. Every active power in
the exuberant vital force that was in her rose in revolt against the
destruction which her own will would fain have wreaked on her own life.
She paused: for the second time, she paused in spite of herself. There,
in the glorious perfection of her youth and health--there, trembling on
the verge of human existence, she stood; with the kiss of the Destroyer
close at her lips, and Nature, faithful to its sacred trust, fighting
for the salvation of her to the last.

No word passed her lips. Her cheeks flushed deep; her breath came thick
and fast. With the poison still in her hand, with the sense that she
might faint in another moment, she made for the window, and threw back
the curtain that covered it.

The new day had risen. The broad gray dawn flowed in on her, over the
quiet eastern sea.

She saw the waters heaving, large and silent, in the misty calm; she
felt the fresh breath of the morning flutter cool on her face. Her
strength returned; her mind cleared a little. At the sight of the sea,
her memory recalled the walk in the garden overnight, and the picture
which her distempered fancy had painted on the black void. In thought,
she saw the picture again--the murderer hurling the Spud of the
plow into the air, and setting the life or death of the woman who had
deserted him on the hazard of the falling point. The infection of that
terrible su