ving the last touches to his wedding
attire, all that was Amos Kilbright had utterly disappeared!

I stood where I had stopped, just inside the door, trembling, scarcely
breathing, so stunned by the terrible sight of those clothes that I
could not move, nor scarcely think. If I had seen his dead body there I
should have been shocked, but to see nothing! It was awful to such an
extent that my mind could not deal with it!

Presently I heard a step, and slightly turning, saw my wife close by me.
She had passed the open door, and seeing me standing as if stricken into
a statue, had entered.

It did not need that I should speak to her. Pale as a sheet she stood
beside me, her hand tightly grasping my arm, and with her lips pallid
with horror, she formed the words: "They have done it!"

In a few moments she pulled me gently back, and said, in quick, low
tones, as if we had been in presence of the dead: "In less than an hour
she will be at the church. We must not stay here."

With this she turned and stepped quickly from the room. I followed,
closing the door behind me.

Swiftly moving, and without a word, my wife put on her hat and left the
house. Mechanically I followed. I could speak no word of comfort to that
poor girl, at this moment the happiest of expectant brides. I knew that
I had not the power to even attempt to explain to her the nature of the
dreadful calamity that had fallen upon her. But I could not let my wife
go alone. She, indeed, must speak to Lilian, but there were other
members of the family; I might do something.

To my great surprise, Mrs. Colesworthy did not turn into the street
which led to the Budworths' house, but went straight on. I thought at
first she was going to the church to countermand the wedding
preparations. But before I could put a question to her she had gone
around a corner, and was hurrying up the steps of the principal hotel in
our town.

"Is Dr. Hildstein in?" she asked of the first person she met.

The man, gazing astonished at her pallid face, replied that he was, and
immediately conducted us to a little parlor on the first floor, the door
of which stood partly open. Without knocking, Mrs. Colesworthy hastily
entered, I closely following. A middle-aged man suddenly arose from a
small table at which he was sitting, and turning quickly toward us, made
an abrupt exclamation in German.

As I have said, I do not understand German, but Mrs. Colesworthy knows
the language well,