"You who have been my friends," he said, "who for years have given me your respect and confidence and support, look at the man lying there in his coffin! _That is my work!_" He paused. Every face blanched perceptibly. No one moved, but all hung, with parted lips, upon the next words that strange, toneless voice might utter. It began again: "That man was my friend, and I was his; but he possessed one thing I wanted--the love of a woman, his betrothed wife. Up to the time I began to covet this woman's love, I was as truly his friend as he was mine. Up to the hour when the devil put it into my power to swear away his good name I had never dreamed of being false to him, though I had reason to believe that the woman I loved cared for him only as a sister might, and I might have fairly won her. He was accused of a crime, and my word might have cleared him. Instead of that, it convicted him. On my false testimony he went, an innocent man, to prison, and I came with the woman I had perjured my soul to win as my wife to this country. "For years I tried to forget. I could not. My sin followed me day and night, and poisoned every moment of my existence. At last I made up my mind to go back to the old place and give myself up, and make amends for what I had done. I left my wife and child here, and worked my passage back to England. I was too late. Justice had been done so far as human law could do it. The real criminals had been found, and he I had wronged was free. And he had gone to America. I knew what for. He was slow to anger, but, when once aroused, his anger was terrible. I knew that he was seeking me, and I knew that he would find me. From that time I never lay down to sleep but my last thought was, 'It may be to-morrow!' I never rose in the morning that I did not say to myself, 'Perhaps it may be to-day!' For years I have lived with this spectre of vengeance at my elbow. What my life has been since I came among you, you think you know. What it really has been, no mortal man can guess. At last, what was to be came to pass. He found me." A shudder shook the speaker, and he was silent an instant. Then he continued: