oftly in I took up my station by his side in silent awe.

But they would have me talk, and finally in some desperation I turned
to him and said, quietly:

"The scaffolding broke beneath them, did it not?" At which he first
stared and then flung up his arms with a wild but suppressed cry. But
he said nothing, and next moment had settled again into his old
attitude of silent horror and amazement.

"He might better be lying with them," I whispered after a moment,
coming from his side. And one by one they echoed my words, and as he
failed to move or even show any symptoms of active life, we gradually
drifted from the spot till we were all huddled again below in the
hollow blackness of that doorway guarded over by the dead.

Who should tell her father? They all looked at me, but I shook my
head, and it fell to another to perform this piteous errand, for
fearful thoughts were filling my brain, and Orrin did not look
altogether guiltless to me as he lay there dead beside the maiden he
had declared so fiercely should never be mistress of this house.

* * * * *

Was ever such a night of horror known in this town!

They have brought the two bruised bodies down into the village and
they now lie side by side in the parlor where I last saw Juliet in the
bloom and glow of life. The Colonel is still crouching where I left
him. No one can make him speak and no one can make him move, and the
terror which his terror has produced affects the whole community, not
even the darkness of the night serving to lessen the wild excitement
which drives men and women about the streets as if it were broad
daylight, and makes of every house an open thorough-fare through
which anybody who wishes can pass.

I, who have followed every change and turn in this whole calamitous
affair, am like one benumbed at this awful crisis. I too go and come
through the streets, hear people say in shouts, in cries, with bitter
tears and wild lamentations, "Juliet is dead!" "Orrin is dead!" and
get no sense from the words. I have even been more than once to that
spot where they lie in immovable beauty, and though I gaze and gaze
upon them, I feel nothing--not even wonder. Only the remembrance of
that rigid figure frozen into its place above the gulf where so much
youth and so many high hopes fell, has power to move me. When amid the
shadows which surround me I see _that_, I shudder and the groan rises
slowly to my lips as if I too