fiery surging of hot blood through heart and brain, in a sudden impulse that calls in a mighty voice for the deed to be done--and it is done. As I stood under the trees, Hermione, the sunlight grew blood-red. The girl, in her weak, shrill voice, finished her tale. She had given me every detail of the forgery and the fraud. When her voice ceased, it was as though some cord had snapped suddenly in my brain, and I turned away. ‘You will not forget your promises, Sir Ronald?’ she said. ‘No; I will not forget them.’ And as I walked from the oak trees I kept repeating to myself those words, ‘I will not forget them!’ “Was I mad? Only God knows. I can remember that every beat of my pulse sent a burning thrill through me, that the beating of my heart seemed to come to me as a hot, heavy sound. Hermione, do you remember? Oh! sweet wife, how it pains me to look across the gulf of years, the sweet, sinless happy years; do you remember that one evening at Leeholme Park? You showed some curiosities that your cousin had brought from abroad with him. Amongst them was a small, sharp, bright, pointed Grecian dagger, an antique of great value, with a jeweled handle--one which Grecian ladies wore as a toy, which had, without doubt, been used in many a deathblow. I took it up in my hands to admire it, and you gave it to me, asking me with a smile never to let your cousin know, or he would be jealous. “It must have been fate that led me that morning to the little drawer, where I kept all my souvenirs of you. This lay amongst them, and I saw that one of the rubies was missing from the handle. I had some intention of going over to Leeholme that day, so I put it in my pocket, thinking that I would call at a jeweler’s and have it replaced. I wish it had not been so, Hermione. Had not that weapon been in my hands, the deed would not have been done. I walked on with the same hot surging through heart and brain, this same dull roaring, as of distant cannon in my ears, and the sunlight was all red. It came to me like a picture in a red frame. I saw a lake--clear, cool, deep, dark water--with green boughs bending over it. One bough was swinging to and fro in the wind, and on it sat a little bird singing sweet, jubilant notes. Clarice sat underneath the tree. She looked so white and cool in the midst of the hot sunlight, and the mad, red wildfire that danced before my eyes. She was smiling--looking at the water and smiling as though her thoughts were happy ones.