“Fortunately your hatred has no further power to harm us,” he replied, coldly; and she saw the re-united husband and wife look into each other’s eyes with a tenderness that almost maddened her. “Well, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I never lost an opportunity of harming you both while I had the power,” she said, sullenly. “I laid my plans long before I came to Selwyn Heights. Do you know,” she said, bitterly, looking at Nina, “why you received no letters from your husband for two years before he came home? It was because I intercepted them all, using my influence over Oswald Ferris as a cat’s-paw to secure the letters before they were sent on shore and posted. Oh, I hated you, Nina Strangemore, long before I ever saw you, because you had married the only man I ever loved in my life. I was determined to separate you from him if possible, but I suppose,” she added, sullenly, “that there is more mysterious force in the marriage bond than I ever suspected. The moment he saw you he was attracted by you, and that moment made of me a devil. I hated you so much that I came to see you hung to-day, without the least twinge of conscience or compunction!” Nina shivered, and leaned more closely on the strong arm that supported her. “Yes, and my only regret is that Talbot’s coming was not delayed a little longer, so that you might have been dead before he came,” added the wicked woman. “Oh, Sibyl, I did not know you could be so cruel and wicked!” cried a fresh young voice, indignantly, and Mrs. St. Alban saw Virgie Mason leaning on the arm of Marmaduke Cameron, and looking at her with reproach and scorn on her frank young face. Beyond her was Helen Starr, with Virgie’s handsome young brother. Both their faces expressed amazement and contempt. “Dear me,” she cried, with a wretched attempt at sarcastic mirth. “So you are all here to witness my downfall? It is quite a melodramatic performance, is it not, but with the villain left out, as Oswald Ferris, who tried to murder me, is absent, and dead, let us hope, from the fangs of the Egyptian wolves.” They gazed at her in disgust and abhorrence. Her appearance in her improper attire brought blushes to the cheeks of the fair young girls. They withdrew in disgust, and Sibyl raved when she found that she would not be permitted to leave the cell also. She was retained in durance vile to stand trial for the crime she had committed in conspiring against the life of Nina Strangemore by her novel and terrible plot. If popular indignation had had its way, Sibyl St. Alban would have suffered death on the scaffold from which our beautiful, innocent Nina had been so opportunely saved, but a jury more merciful than the one that had tried Nina, awarded her a long term of years in the penitentiary. We will forestall time by informing our readers that she died before her sentence had expired, so she was never let loose upon the world again, to do evil with her wonderful beauty and her false heart.