“My wound was not mortal,” she said, “and I discovered the fact in a few minutes after Oswald Ferris had left the room. Then a diabolical plot entered my head. My love for Talbot Strangemore had turned to bitterest hate, for he told me that night in the conservatory at Selwyn Heights, where I got up a scene to make his wife jealous, that he had discovered that his fancy for me was the merest fancy after all, and that he had never loved until he met his beautiful bride the night of his return home. He begged me to forget our foolish and wicked love-dream, and to go away from Selwyn Heights and leave him in peace to woo and win his gentle girl-bride. Oh, how I hated him, then, and I could have killed him on the spot, but happening to turn my head, I saw Nina looking in at the door, and I instantly threw my arms around him and laid my head on his breast, arousing her anger to such a degree that she accused me before them all of taking her husband from her. Well, I had my revenge. I went to her room that night and goaded her to madness until she promised to leave Talbot free to marry me. I watched until I saw her leave her home, then I retired to bed, gloating over the misery I had caused Talbot and Nina in thus separating them. I fell asleep and knew no more until I felt the assassin’s knife enter my breast, and waking in fear and agony, I recognized the desperate man with whom I had coquetted so heartlessly. He fled, and when my loud shrieks brought assistance I did not choose to betray Oswald Ferris, for then I should have had to own that I had driven him to frenzy by my falsity. I had stolen a letter from Nina’s door that night and brought it away with me. When they found it and wondered over it, I at once conceived the plan that I afterward carried into execution. Thirsting for vengeance on those whom I hated so bitterly I charged Nina with the murder, knowing that her flight would lend color to the accusation. Afterwards I bribed the physician who was called to attend me, and with his help I carried out my daring scheme. I apparently died and was buried, but he resurrected me secretly, and I went on then alone with the plan I had laid out. I haunted Selwyn Heights, playing ghost, until I caught Nina home again, and then I caused her arrest in a few hours of her return.” “My God, and to think that I ever fancied I loved such a fiend!” she heard a voice exclaim, in accents of the most passionate self-contempt. She turned her head and saw Talbot Strangemore sitting just inside the cell, with Nina beside him. On her wasted, yet still lovely face was a look of such rare and perfect happiness, that the guilty woman gnashed her teeth in rage and despair. “You have foiled me, Talbot Strangemore, and, oh, how I hate you both!” she hissed, with the venom of a serpent.