ire-arms were not procurable, neither was poison
nor a rope, but a pewter plate is enough in the hands of a desperate
man. He broke one in two last night, and----"

He paused, sick and horror-stricken. Her face had risen upon him from
the back of the chair, and was staring upon him like that of a Medusa.
Before that gaze the flesh crept on his bones and the breath of life
refused to pass his lips. Gazing at her with rising horror, he saw her
stony lips slowly part.

"Don't go on," she whispered. "I can see it all without the help of
words." Then, in a tone that seemed to come from some far-off world of
nightmare, she painfully gasped, "Is he dead?"

[Illustration: "He paused, sick and horror-stricken. Her face had risen
upon him from the back of the chair, and was staring at him like that of
a Medusa."--(Page 252.)]

Mr. Orcutt was a man who, up to the last year, had never known what it
was to experience a real and controlling emotion. Life with him had
meant success in public affairs, and a certain social pre-eminence that
made his presence in any place the signal of admiring looks and
respectful attentions. But let no man think that, because his doom
delays, it will never come. Passions such as he had deprecated in
others, and desires such as he had believed impossible to himself, had
seized upon him with ungovernable power, and in this moment especially
he felt himself yielding to their sway with no more power of resistance
than a puppet experiences in the grasp of a whirlwind. Meeting that
terrible eye of hers, burning with an anxiety for a man he despised,
and hearing that agonized question from lips whose touch he had never
known, he experienced a sudden wild and almost demoniac temptation to
hurl back the implacable "Yes" that he felt certain would strike her
like a dead woman to the ground. But the horrid impulse passed, and,
with a quick remembrance of the claims of honor upon one bearing his
name and owning his history, he controlled himself with a giant
resolution, and merely dropping his eyes from an anguish he dared no
longer confront, answered, quietly:

"No; he has hurt himself severely and has disfigured his good looks for
life, but he will not die; or so the physicians think."

A long, deep, shuddering sigh swept through the room.

"Thank God!" came from her lips, and then all was quiet again.

He looked up in haste; he could not bear the silence.

"Imogene----" he began, but instantly paused