were looking down into a gulf from which
hope and love would never again rise.

* * * * *

The Colonel is now in his father's house. He was induced to leave the
place by Ralph Urphistone's little child. When the great man first
felt the touch of those baby fingers upon his, he shuddered and half
recoiled, but as the little one pulled him gently but persistently
towards the stair, he gradually yielded to her persuasion, and
followed till he had descended to the ground-floor and left the fatal
house. I do not think any other power could have induced him to pass
that blood-stained threshold. For he seems thoroughly broken down, and
will, I fear, never be the same man that he was before this fearful
tragedy took place before his eyes.

All day I have paced the floor of my room asking myself if I should
allow Juliet to be laid away in the same tomb as Orrin. He was her
murderer, without doubt, and though he has shared her doom, was it
right for me to allow one stone to be raised above their united
graves. Feeling said no, but reason bade me halt before I disturbed
the whole community with whispers of a crime. I therefore remained
undecided, and it was in this same condition of doubt that I finally
went to the funeral and stood with the rest of the lads beside the
open grave which had been dug for the unhappy lovers in that sunny
spot beside the great church door. At sight of this grave and the twin
coffins about to be lowered into it, I felt my struggle renewed, and
yet I held my peace and listened as best I could to the minister's
words and the broken sobs of such as had envied these two in their
days of joyance, but had only pity for pleasure so soon over and hopes
doomed to such early destruction.

We were all there; Ralph and Lemuel and the other neighbors, old and
young, all except that chief of mourners, the Colonel; for he was
still under the influence of that horror which kept him enchained in
silence, and had not even been sensible enough of the day and its
mournful occasion to rise and go to the window as the long funeral
cortege passed his house. We were all there and the minister had said
the words, and Orrin's body had been lowered to its final rest, when
suddenly, as they were about to move Juliet, a tumult was observed in
the outskirts of the crowd, and the Colonel towering in his rage and
appalling in his just indignation, fought his way through the
recoiling masses till he