"You call me husband _now_--you, who have so long refused to receive me as a husband. Come--I am impatient to shed your blood, and that of your paramour. Breathe a short prayer to Heaven, for mercy and forgiveness, and then resign your body to death and your soul to eternity!" So saying the desperate and half-crazy man raised on high the glittering knife. Poor Mrs. Romaine uttered a shriek, and, before she could repeat it, the knife descended with the swiftness of lightning, and penetrated her heart. Her blood spouted all over her white dress, and she sank down at the murderer's feet, a lifeless corpse! Paralyzed with horror, I could neither move nor speak. Anderson also stood motionless, like a bird which is subjected to the fascinating gaze of a serpent. Notwithstanding the terrible danger in which he was placed, he seemed to be rooted to the spot and incapable of making a single effort to save himself by either resistance or flight. The scene was most extraordinary, thrilling and awful. The luxurious chamber--the failing lamp--the murderer, holding in his hand the bloody knife--the doomed Anderson, whose soul was quivering on the brink of the dread abyss of eternity; all these combined to form a spectacle of the most strange and appalling character. Romaine now raised his pistol and took deliberate aim at Anderson, saying, "My work is but half done; it is _your_ turn now! Are you ready?" "Do not shoot me like a dog," implored the unfortunate young man, who, to do him justice, possessed a considerable amount of courage--"give me, at least, _some_ chance for my life. If I have wronged you, and I candidly confess that I have, I am ready to give you the satisfaction of a gentleman. Give me a pistol, place me upon an equal footing with yourself, and we will settle the matter as becomes men of honor. This boy, here, will be a witness of the affair." To this proposition, Romaine scornfully replied, "I admire your assurance, sir.--After seducing the wife, you want a chance to shoot the husband. Well, as I am an accommodating man, it shall be as you say, for I am sick of life and care not if I am killed. But I have no other pistol. Stay!--suppose we _toss up_ a coin, and thus decide which of us shall have this weapon, with the privilege of using it. Here is a quarter of a dollar; I will throw it up in the air, and when it falls upon the floor, if the _head_ is uppermost, the pistol is _mine_; but if the _tail_ is uppermost, the pistol shall be _yours_. I warn you that if I win, I shall show you no mercy; and, if you win, I shall expect none from you. Do you agree to this?" "I do," replied Anderson, firmly, "and I thank you for your fairness." Romaine threw up the coin, which spun around in the air and landed upon the carpet. How strange that it should have become the province of that insignificant coin to decide which of those two men must die!