mind, to preserve Elsie from his
anger--the worst had come to her now. Her present agony was too great
for dread--the shame of the world--the most loathsome prison--nothing
could bring such pangs as this wrenching away of hope and happiness.

She sat upright on the ground, folding her hands in her lap. Weaker
women would have fainted, perhaps gone mad, but when the first dizzy
whirl had left her senses, she could see and think clearly.

"With this man you alone buried the child. Will you own it, or shall I
charge the servants as your accomplices--will you carry out your guilt
to the last, and let others suffer that you may escape?"

"No, no! I do not struggle. See, I do not defend myself. Let it fall on
me! But no murder, do not charge me with murder. Oh, I am not so bad as
that--I could not harm one of God's creatures."

"Is not your sin worse than murder? Why, the blackest criminal has white
hands compared to yours! You whom I loved and trusted--you have dragged
a man's soul through the depths of your sin."

"I have not, I have not!" she broke forth.

He pointed to the box--he turned his finger to the man who stood in the
shadows, shrouded with blackness, like the fiend he was. What could she
say--how could she deny with that evidence at her feet.

"Oh, my God, have mercy!" she groaned.

"Don't take his name on your lips--don't curse yourself more deeply by a
prayer!"

She crouched lower on the ground, her wild eyes were raised to heaven,
but there was no help--no aid.

"All the facts--I will hear them from your own lips--speak."

She was silent.

"I know--I have been on your track for days. It was not enough that you
destroyed my life, trampled on my honor, but you must choose for the
partner of your guilt the man who had most cruelly wronged me--the one
foe I had on earth."

"No, no! I never saw that man--never!"

"Peace, woman! I tell you that man standing yonder with a grin of Satan
on his lips, is William Ford."

She did cry out then--this was a horror of which she had not dreamed.

"I never knew it; I never knew it."

"And you love this wretch? Through him you shall suffer!"

"I hate him, loathe him!" she cried. "Oh, in this one thing believe
me--I never knew it was Ford. The name was changed to deceive me."

"I would not believe a word from your lips though you brought an angel
to witness it."

Then he looked down at the little coffin, and a fierce gust of insanity
swept over him.

"I