as still
murmuring to herself in seeming unconsciousness of his presence.
"Stars!" she was repeating; "and above them God!" And the long shudders
shook her frame again, and she dropped her head and seemed about to fall
into her old abstraction when her eye encountered that of the District
Attorney, and she hurriedly aroused herself.

"Pardon me," she exclaimed, with an ill-concealed irony, particularly
impressive after her tone of the moment before, "have you any thing
further to exact of me?"

"No," he made haste to reply; "only before I go I would entreat you to
be calm----"

"And say the word I have to say to-morrow without a balk and without an
unnecessary display of feeling," she coldly interpolated. "Thanks, Mr.
Ferris, I understand you. But you need fear nothing from me. There will
be no scene--at least on my part--when I rise before the court to give
my testimony to-morrow. Since my hand must strike the fatal blow, it
shall strike--firmly!" and her clenched fist fell heavily on her own
breast, as if the blow she meditated must first strike there.

The District Attorney, more moved than he had deemed it possible for him
to be, made her a low bow and withdrew slowly to the door.

"I leave you, then, till to-morrow," he said.

"Till to-morrow."

Long after he had passed out, the deep meaning which informed those two
words haunted his memory and disturbed his heart. Till to-morrow! Alas,
poor girl! and after to-morrow, what then?

XXXIV.

WHAT WAS HID BEHIND IMOGENE'S VEIL.

Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down.--HENRY IV.

THE few minutes that elapsed before the formal opening of court the next
morning were marked by great cheerfulness. The crisp frosty air had put
everybody in a good-humor. Even the prisoner looked less sombre than
before, and for the first time since the beginning of his trial, deigned
to turn his eyes toward the bench where Imogene sat, with a look that,
while it was not exactly kind, had certainly less disdain in it than
before he saw his way to a possible acquittal on the theory advanced by
his counsel.

But this look, though his first, did not prove to be his last. Something
in the attitude of the woman he gazed at--or was it the mystery of the
heavy black veil that enveloped her features?--woke a strange doubt in
his mind. Beckoning to Mr. Orcutt, he communicated with him in a low
tone.

"Can it be possible," asked he, "that any thing new could hav