taken her punishment into her own hands."

"Mr. Jeffrey will please answer the question," insisted the major.
Whereupon the latter, with great effort, but with the first
appearance of real candor yet seen in him, said earnestly:

"I did nothing to influence her. I was in no condition to do so.
I was benumbed--dead. When first she told me,--it was in some
words muttered in her sleep--I thought she was laboring under some
fearful nightmare; but when she persisted, and I questioned her,
and found the horror true, I was like a man turned instantly into
stone, save for one intolerable throb within. I am still so;
everything passes by me like a dream. She was so young, seemingly
so innocent and light-hearted. I loved her! Gentlemen, you have
thought me guilty of my wife's death,--this young fairy-like
creature to whom I ascribed all the virtues! and I was willing,
willing that you should think so, willing even to face the distrust
and opprobrium of the whole world,--and so was her sister, the
noble woman whom you see before you--rather than that the full
horror of her crime should be known and a name so dear be given up
to execration. We thought we could keep the secret--we felt that
we must keep the secret--we took an oath--in French--in the
carriage with the detectives opposite us. She kept it--God bless
her! I kept it. But it was all useless--a tiny bit of lace is
found hanging to a lifeless splinter, and all our efforts, all the
hopes and agony of weeks are gone for naught. The world will soon
know of her awful deed--and I--"

He still loved her! That was apparent in every look, in every word
he uttered. We marveled in awkward silence, and were glad when the
major said:

"The deed, as I take it, was an unpremeditated one on her part. Is
that why her honor was dearer to you than your own, and why you
could risk the reputation if not the life of the woman who you say
sacrificed herself to it?"

"Yes, it was unpremeditated; she hardly realized her act. If you
must know her heart through all this dreadful business, we have her
words to show you--words which she spent the last miserable day of
her life in writing. The few lines which I showed the captain and
which have been published to the world was an inclosure meant for
the public eye. The real letter, telling the whole terrible truth,
I kept for myself and for the sister who already knew her sin. Oh,
we did everything we could!" And he again moan