ast word died away in an exclamation of horror, for the face she
touched was cold as marble, and she fell forward struggling for breath.

Ralph had followed her to the door, and lingered there, waiting for his
mother to summon him, but there was something in the atmosphere which
crept through into the hall that awoke his apprehension, this was
increased by Lina's sudden silence.

With a quickened beat of the heart he went in, but a stifling haze
filled the room, which was so dark that he could only see Lina, lying
motionless across the bed. He rushed to the window and tore back the
curtains, filling the room with a dull luminous fog, through which he
saw Lina, pale as marble, and gasping for breath, but with her eyes wide
open, and fixed on the face of his father.

"My God--oh, my God! what is this?" he cried, staggering forward.

"It is your father, Ralph, cold as death."

Ralph uttered a cry so sharp and piercing that it reached James and
Benson, who came in alarm from the breakfast-room--nay, it penetrated
farther, and aroused Mabel from her comfortless sleep in the chamber
above. She arose with a thrill of unaccountable awe, and glided down the
stairs, passing the mulatto chambermaid, who stood motionless as a
bronze statue outside the door. As the woman saw her she gave a cry and
her eyes dilated with unspeakable horror; slowly, as if she had been
forced into motion by some irresistible power, she turned and followed
after Mabel, step by step, till both stood in the room of death. The
eyes of those two women fell on the dead body of General Harrington at
the same moment; Mabel burst into tears. The mulatto seemed turning to
stone--she did not breathe, she did not move, but stood with her lips
apart, helpless, speechless, stricken with a terrible horror.

James Harrington saw the furnace standing on the hearth with a handful
of white ashes at the bottom.

"It is the fumes of charcoal--he has been smothered--who brought this
here?" he exclaimed, looking at the woman.

If he expected to see that ashen grey upon her cheek, which is the
nearest approach to pallor that her race can know, he was disappointed.
She neither changed color nor moved, but a gleam of horrible
intelligence came into her eyes, and as her lips closed, a faint quiver
stirred them.

She did not heed his question, but turned in silence and went out.

Half an hour after, when the first great shock was over, and James
Harrington sent to have