My tempting fiend pointed to one whose suffering would atone for much of my misery. Edna, I withhold nothing; there is much I might conceal, but I scorn to do so. During one terribly fatal winter, scarlet-fever had deprived Mr. Hammond of four children, leaving him an only daughter--Annie--the image of her brother Murray. Her health was feeble; consumption was stretching its skeleton hands toward her, and her father watched her as a gardener tends his pet, choice, delicate exotic. She was about sixteen, very pretty, very attractive. After Murray's death, I never spoke to Mr. Hammond, never crossed his path; but I met his daughter without his knowledge, and finally I made her confess her love for me. I offered her my hand; she accepted it. A day was appointed for an elopement and marriage; the hour came; she left the parsonage, but I did not meet her here on the steps of this church as I had promised, and she received a note that announced my inability to fulfill the engagement. Two hours later her father found her insensible on the steps, and the marble was dripping with a hemorrhage of blood from her lungs. The dark stain is still there; you must have noticed it. I never saw her again. She kept her room from that day, and died three months after. When on her deathbed she sent for me, but I refused to obey the summons. As I stand here, I see through the window the gray, granite vault overgrown with ivy, and the marble slab where sleep in untimely death Murray and Annie Hammond, the victims of my insatiable revenge. Do you wonder that I doubted you when you said that afflicted father, Allan Hammond, had never uttered one unkind word about me?" Mr. Murray pointed to a quiet corner of the church-yard, but Edna did not lift her face, and he heard the half-smothered, shuddering moan that struggled up as she listened to him. He put his hand on hers, but she shivered and shrank away from him.