ng her, she had hated him. She had darkened his life;
she had ruined his soul.

Oh, was not this a revenge worthy of the name?

I went to him. He was sitting in the great easy-chair, propped with
pillows; John had left the room, overcome by his feelings. Never shall
I forget that face,--the despair of those eyes.

I sat down by him and took his hand.

"The Doctor has told you?" I murmured.

"Yes,--and what is this world which I so soon must enter? I believe too
much to have one moment's peace in view of what is coming. Oh, why did
I not believe more before it was too late?"

I kept silence a few minutes; then I said,--

"Listen, William,--I have something to tell you."

He looked eagerly toward me;--perhaps he thought even then, poor dupe,
that it was some word of hope, that there was some chance for his
recovery.

Then I told him all,--all,--my lifelong hatred, my cherished purpose.
Blank amazement was in the gaze that he turned upon me. I feared that
impending death had blunted his senses, and that he did not fully
comprehend.

"You will remember now what I once told you," I cried, with savage joy;
"for so surely as there is another world, in that world shall you live,
and live to suffer, and to remember in your anguish why you suffer, and
to whose hand you owe it."

He understood well enough now. "Fiend!" he exclaimed, with a look of
horror, and started to his feet. The effort, the emotion, were too
much. Blood gushed from his lips; a frightful spasm convulsed his
features; he fell back; he was gone!

Yes,--he was gone! And my life's work was complete!

I cannot tell what happened after that. I suppose they must have found
him, and laid him out, and buried him; but I remember nothing of it.
Since then I have lived in this great, gloomy house, with its barred
doors and windows. Never since I came here have I seen a face that I
knew. Maniacs are all about me; I meet them in the halls, the gardens;
sometimes I hear the fiercer sort raving and dashing about their cells.
But I do not feel afraid of them.

It is strange how they all fancy that the rest are mad, and they the
only sane ones. Some of them even go so far as to think that _I_ have
lost my reason. I heard one woman say, not long ago,--"Why, she has
been mad these twenty years! She never was married in her life; but she
believes all these things as if they were really so, and tells them
over to anybody who will listen to her."

Mad these twent