“We do not sell poisons without a physician’s prescription,” he had said to her at first, then yielded and gave her the phial because in some adroit way she had conveyed to him the impression that she wished it to relieve a tooth-ache. She caught it eagerly from his hand, and madly drained the last drop, then dashed wildly from the place. The horrified clerk ran after her, but the beautiful desperate girl had already disappeared from his sight like a shadow among the shadows of the inclement night. CHAPTER XXII. REMORSE. The world of fashiondom that had been so shocked and astonished at the news from Selwyn Heights of the attempted murder of Mrs. St. Alban had another sensation a few days later when an item quite as startling as the first appeared in the newspapers. “Death in the streets. A mysterious suicide. Night before last the drug-clerk at the store of Physic & Co. on B. street was very much startled at a late hour by the entrance of a beautiful young girl who asked for some laudanum for the tooth-ache. As she appeared to be suffering acute pain he complied with her request, but was horrified when he beheld her pause on the threshold, pull the stopper from the phial, and drain the last drop of the deadly narcotic poison. He immediately ran after her, but she rushed into the street and in a moment had entirely disappeared from sight. Mr. Meldrum, the clerk, gave the alarm to a passing policeman, but he failed to trace the mysterious suicide, and up to this date her body has not been recovered, although it is believed that she must surely have succeeded in her fell design of self-destruction. A clue to her identity is afforded in the fact that she dropped her handkerchief upon the floor of the shop where the clerk found it lying after she was gone. The perfumed bit of lace and embroidery was marked in the corner with the name Nina Strangemore. It is believed without a doubt that she was the desperate young wife who fled from Selwyn Heights after the attempted murder of her rival, Mrs. St. Alban. Her description tallies exactly with that of the missing Mrs. Strangemore, who was said to be brilliantly lovely, a dark-eyed blonde with rich golden hair, and a skin like lillies and roses. Her mournful suicide from remorse and despair furnishes the finale to her sad and romantic story of love, jealousy and revenge.” What a passion of remorse, of horror, and despair, swept over Talbot Strangemore’s heart as he unfolded his morning paper still damp from the press, and read that dreadful paragraph. He threw the paper to his aunt without a word, and rising unsteadily from his chair at breakfast, went away to his room to lock himself in with that guilty conscience that rose up and called him to his face “Murderer!”