A low cry shrilled through the room, and old Maria shuddered at the strange sound, it was so distinctly malicious, so frankly glad. "Ma'am!" she uttered, indignantly; and Mrs. Fielding half raised herself on her pillow, and exclaimed: "Daisy Forrest dead! My rival dead! Ah, that is glorious news!" Maria's old black face turned gray with indignant emotion. "Hush, missie! You ought to be afraid to talk so. De good Lord might punish your hardness of heart." "Hold your tongue, Maria! You know I hated that woman. You know that she was my rival--that she held my husband's heart--yet you ask me not to be glad she is dead!" Her black eyes blazed luridly, and her pale, beautiful face writhed with jealousy, as, almost breathless, she fell back upon her pillow, and Maria hurriedly seized a bottle of camphor and began to bathe her brow and hands. "Honey, you knowed all dis afore you married my young master; so, what for you want to take on so now?" she whimpered, reproachfully. "Yes, I knew it all; but they told me that it was the way of young men to be wild before marriage--that he would cast her off when he became my husband, and hate her very memory. But it was false; he loved that wicked, fallen creature best always. He would breathe her name in his sleep as he lay by my side. He visited her still--" "No, no, missie; dat pore gal not so bad as dat! She nebber 'low him to come no more arter he married you," interrupted Maria. "I tell you he did go, Maria! I followed him once, dressed in boy's clothes. He went in, and I heard him swearing that he loved her more than ever, and--and--" Her voice choked with fury a moment; then she continued, wildly: "Dead, thank Heaven--dead, and out of my way forever! Now he will be all my own! But it was very sudden, was it not, Maria?" "Very suddint, missie," the old woman answered, sullenly. "Dere was a leetle baby born night afore last, and de mudder died afore morning." "A baby born! My husband's, of course!" the sick woman cried, furiously; and it seemed as if her jealous passion would kill her, so terrible was the expression that distorted her beautiful face as Maria replied, in her sullen way: "I ain't gwine to deny dat, missie, for dat 'ud make de dead gal seem worser dan she wer', and I ain't gwine to frow no mo' sin an' shame dan possible on dat pore thing layin' in her coffin wid her baby on her breast." "So the miserable offspring of shame died, too. That is good! I hate it with the same hate I had for its mother!" the infuriated, maddened woman cried out, remorselessly; but before Maria could utter a single remonstrance, another sound, and one more startling than the solemn funeral-bell, broke upon their ears. It was the loud reverberation of a pistol-shot within the house. "Oh! what was that?" shrieked Mrs. Fielding, in terror.