Both bowed to the shrinking woman who stood watching them, drained their glasses, and set them back with a simultaneous clink upon the marble table. Then a wild, maniacal laugh filled the room--so shrill, so exultant, so blood-curdling, it froze the blood in the veins of the man and woman who stood there listening. "Ha, ha," cried Mr. St. John, "you thought I did not know your secret, you two! But I did. I heard your talk on my wedding-night. I knew then that I had taken the woman you loved. Howard, I knew that she had sought me, and won me, and married me, to revenge her wrongs at your hands. I said to myself her beautiful body is mine--I have bought it with my gold--but her heart is Howard Templeton's!" "No, no," cried Xenie, stamping her foot passionately; "I hate him! I hate him!" "Hush!" thundered the old man, turning on her with the wild glare of madness in his eyes, "hush, woman! I have thought it over for months--at last I have reached a conclusion. The world is not wide enough for us two men to live in. So I said to myself--one of us must die!" "Must die!" repeated Howard Templeton, with a sudden strong shudder. "Yes, _die_!" cried the maniac, with another horrible laugh. "So I put deadly poison into one of the bottles that chance might decide our fates. Xenie poured out death for one of us just now. In ten minutes either you or I will be dead, Howard Templeton!" CHAPTER VI. For one terrible moment Xenie St. John and Howard Templeton remained silently gazing at the excited old man, as if petrified with horror, then: "My God, my uncle is a madman!" broke hoarsely from the young man's ashen lips, in tones of unutterable horror and grief. Mrs. St. John rushed to the door, threw it wide open, and shrieked aloud in frenzied accents for help. The servants came rushing in and found their old master crouching in a corner of the room, gibbering and mouthing like some terrible wild beast, his bloodshot eyes rolling in their sockets, his lips all flecked with foam, while Howard Templeton remained silent in the center of the room, like a statue of horror. "A doctor--bring a doctor!" shrieked Xenie, wildly. It was not five minutes before a physician, living close by, was brought in, but even as he crossed the threshold, the insane creature rolled over upon the floor in the agonies of death. One or two desperate struggles, a gasp, a quiver from head to foot and the old millionaire lay dead before them. The physician knelt down and felt his heart and his pulse. "He is dead," he said, shaking his head slowly and sadly. "I apprehended a fit the last time he consulted me, some three weeks ago. His mind and body were both weakening fast. This mournful end was not unexpected by me." Mrs. St. John made a quick step forward. She was about to say, "He did not die in a fit, doctor, he died of poison," when a hand like steel gripped her wrist. She looked up and met the stern, awful gaze of Howard Templeton.