Ebenezer Piper went into the apple-green bedroom where his wife was lying, the wife who was so soon to drift away from him down that dark stream which led he knew not whither. The certainty of impending death made her sacred. She was beyond punishment or upbraiding. One could scarcely say hard things to the vilest criminal, when his hour of doom was fixed and the rope round his neck. The final irrevocable sentence stultifies all lesser penalties. Bella was lying with her face turned away from the light, her lovely auburn hair rippling over the pillows--that hair whose luxuriance had been one of her charms. One little hand lay inert upon the satin coverlet. How pretty she was! The sense of her beauty struck her husband with actual pain. So lovely, so innocent-looking, and so false! ‘If she had lived I would have never seen her face again,’ he thought, ‘but now it doesn’t matter.’ He sat down in the arm-chair by her bed, and waited for her to speak. For himself there was nothing that he could say to her. There was an aching pity for her untimely fate in his heart, coexistent with his burning indignation at her treachery. The fact that she was speedily to die might touch him with compassion, but it could not lessen the baseness of her ingratitude or make her falsehood pardonable. She moved her head restlessly on the pillow, and gave a sigh of weariness. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked. ‘Your husband,’ Mr. Piper answered, quietly. ‘Can you forgive me for hunting without your permission?’ she said in a low voice. How often had that dulcet voice charmed her husband! ‘It was very wrong, very foolish, but you see I have to pay a big price for it.’ ‘Is there nothing else you have to ask forgiveness for?’ he inquired, bitterly. ‘You had better make a clean slate while you are about it. Is there nothing else you are sorry for--on your deathbed?’ There was a pause. Almost unawares the husband took one of those long silken tresses and twined it round his fingers, the bright soft hair he had loved so well. ‘Perhaps I have not been grateful enough for all your kindness,’ faltered Bella. ‘You have been very good to me--very generous. Yes, I ought to have been more grateful.’ ‘Do you really think so?’ asked Mr. Piper, with keenest bitterness. ‘Can you really find a speck or flaw in your conduct? Don’t you think you have been a perfect wife?’ Bella began to cry. ‘I am sure I have tried to do my duty,’ she said. ‘I have tried to make your home pleasant to you--and to improve your position in society.’ ‘Yes,’ answered the husband, with an uncontrollable gust of passion. ‘You have made me acquainted with Captain Standish.’ Bella’s quiet weeping changed to hysterical sobbing. Her whole frame was shaken.