hape, fearsome, vague, but persistent, which hovered in the
shadows above us, drawing a line of eternal separation between me
and my wife, was a thing which could be caught and strangled and--
Oh! I rave! I chatter like a madman; but I did not rave that
night. Nor did I rave when, in the bright, broad sunlight, her eye
slowly unclosed and she started to see me bending so near her, but
not with my usual kiss or glad good morning. I could not question
her then; I dared not. The smile which slowly rose to her lips was
too piteous--it showed confidence. I waited till after breakfast.
Then, while she was seated where she could not see my face, I
whispered the question: 'Do you know that you have had a horrible
dream?' She shrieked and turned. I saw her face and knew that what
she had uttered in her sleep was true.'

"I have no remembrance of what I said to her. She tried to tell me
how she had been tempted and how she had not realized her own act,
till the moment I bent down to kiss her lips as her husband. But I
did not stop to listen--I could not. I flew immediately to Miss
Tuttle with the violent demand as to whether she knew that her
sister was already a wife when she married me, and when she cried
out 'No!' and showed great dismay, I broke forth with the dreadful
tale and cowered in unmanly anguish at her feet, and went mad and
lost myself for a little while. Then I went back to my wretched
wife and asked her how the awful deed had been done. She told me,
and again I did not believe her and began to look upon it all as
some wild dream or the distempered fancies of a disordered brain.
This thought calmed me and I spoke gently to her and even tried to
take her hand. But she herself was raving now, and clung about my
knees, murmuring words of such anguish and contrition that my worst
fears returned and, only stopping to take the key of the Moore
house from my bureau, I left the house and wandered madly--I know
not where.

"I did not go back that day. I could not face her again till I
knew how much of her confession was fancy and how much was fact.
I roamed the streets, carrying that key from one end of the city to
the other, and at night I used it to open the house which she had
declared contained so dreadful a secret.

"I had bought candles on my way there but, forgetting to take them
from the store, I had no light with which to penetrate the horrible
place that even the moon refused to illumine. I realiz