Upon her breast, however, I found a curious tattoo-mark--a strange device representing three hearts entwined. Now in my medical experience, I have found that very few women are tattooed. A woman usually shrinks from the operation--which is not unaccompanied by pain-- and, on careful examination of this mark, I came to the conclusion that it had been pricked some years ago by a practised hand; further, that it had some distinct and mysterious signification. It was in the exact centre of the breast, and just sufficiently low to remain concealed when she had worn a _decollete_ dress. The light was dim and unsatisfactory, but all my efforts to trace the hand of an assassin were futile. Suddenly, however, as I examined her eyes, the left one, nearest the pillow, bore an expression which struck me as unusual. Both organs of sight seemed to have lost their clearness in the moments I had been standing there, and were glazing as _rigor mortis_ set in, but the left eye was becoming more blurred than its fellow--an unusual circumstance which attracted me. The bright blue which I had seen in its unfathomable depths had contracted in a manner altogether unaccountable until it was now only the size of a pin's head. I bent again closely and peered into it. Next instant the awful truth was revealed. She had been foully murdered. With quick heart-beating I examined the eye carefully, finding symptoms of death from some deliriant--a neurotic acting on the brain and producing delirium, presbyopia, and coma. Certain it was that if this were actually the Tempter's work, he was a veritable artist in crime, for the manner in which death had been caused was extremely difficult to determine. Finding myself undisturbed there, I made further and more searching examination, until I held the opinion that death must have been almost, if not quite, instantaneous. But such theory did not coincide with the screams that had escaped her. On reviewing the whole of the circumstances, I felt confident that she must have been fully conscious at the time, and that those shrieks were shrieks of terror. She had divined the intention of her enemies. About the vicinity of the bed I searched for any bottle of medicine that might be there, but in vain. If she had really been ill previously, as the Tempter had alleged, the medicine prescribed might give me some clue to the nature of her disease. Upon a chair close by, her bridal veil of Brussels lace was lying crumpled in a heap, while her gown of white satin was hanging upon the door-knob of the handsome wardrobe. The orange-blossoms diffused their perfume over the room, but to me it was a sickly odour emblematic of the grave. My wife, the most beautiful woman upon whom my eyes had ever fallen, was lifeless--struck down by the hand of a murderer.