He stooped anxiously over the rigid form, looked deeply into the marble face and uttered a cry which those that heard never forgot in all their after life. Then dashing his hand violently against his forehead, he flung himself down by the couch, and dropped his head upon the cold breast of his wife, wailing forth: “Dead! Dead! Dead! And I have killed her! I, a murderer, most accursed!” He was totally unconscious of the sobbing child at his feet, or the frowning woman who stood with folded arms, like a black Nemesis, at his back. He had eyes for neither—for nothing but the lifeless form before him. Gazing on her, pressing his lips to her cold brow, again and again, he broke into the most violent lamentations, the most awful self-accusations. Then hiding his head in the folds of her raiment, he groaned aloud and seemed to swoon into silence. Again, with an accession of frenzy, he started up and began striding to and fro, from end to end of the long room, uttering the most agonized self-reproaches, and calling down the most horrible maledictions upon his own head. This terrible scene went on until at last the weeping child, her heart half broken with grief for her who was beyond suffering, and for him who still suffered, arose from her crouching position and dried her tears and tried to still her sobs, and went to the maddened man, as he raged up and down the floor, invoking imprecations on his own head. She came behind him, pleading in her pitiful tones: “Oh, uncle, do not curse yourself! Pray! The Lord is merciful!” And she put her little hand out to touch his. Then he whirled around upon her like a furious wind, his eyes flashing lightnings of frenzy, his voice thundering: “Avaunt! Begone! Let no innocent thing come near me!” The child turned and fled and buried her face in the lap of Sophia, who was now seated by the dead body of her mistress. “Let me take you to bed, little Glo’,” whispered the woman. “No—no,” sobbed the aggrieved and terrified child. “No—no. I want to stay near him! I—I want to stay near him!” Three dreadful hours passed in this way, with little change. Sophia sat near the head of the lounge, keeping constant watch over the corpse. Little Gloria crouched on the floor at her feet, with her head hidden in the old woman’s lap. Marcellus de Crespigney raged up and down the floor, breathing maledictions upon himself, or he dropped down before the dead body of his wife, uttering awful groans or lapsing into more awful silence. An hour after midnight there came a sound of footsteps, crunching through the frozen snow, and followed by an alarm on the iron knocker at the front door, which announced the arrival of Dr. Prout, the physician of St. Inigoes. De Crespigney, almost exhausted by the long continued violence of his emotions, was now calm with the calmness of prostration and despair.