On reaching the sands, instead of being alone, as I had hoped, I found two persons already there. I drew back quickly, intending to return; but they were passing too swiftly to notice me. As they went by, the bright full moon gleamed over their pale, wan faces, and I recognized in them Madame C----and the tenor! They were talking earnestly, in low, rapid Italian. She leaned on his arm,--indeed, they seemed to be sustaining each other, for both appeared feeble and faint; but, tottering as they were, they sped rapidly by, and so near to me that the corner of Madame C----'s mantle flapped in my face, and left a strange subtile perfume behind it. But what struck me most was the expression of their faces,--such wild, sad, longing, entreating love! As they disappeared around a corner of the cliff which jutted out, a dreadful suspicion seized me. Could they be seeking self-destruction? Were they going to bury their unhallowed love, with its shame and sorrow, in one wildering embrace beneath those surging ocean-waves? As one in a dream, I moved along the beach, hardly knowing whither I went. Mechanically I ascended the flight of steps which led to the part of the cliff directly opposite the hotel entrance. As I walked up the lawn, I noticed a great commotion in the house. There were lights flitting about, people running up and down stairs, and many persons talking confusedly on the gallery and in the hall. "What is the matter?" I asked of a waiter who was passing near me, looking frightened and bewildered. He stopped, and answered with all the keen eagerness of an untrained person, to whom the communicating of a startling story to an uninformed superior is a perfect godsend. "Very strange doings, Ma'am,--very strange!" "Aha!" I thought; "they have discovered the absence or flight of those unhappy creatures." "Very strange doings!" he repeated. "The foreign lady who sang to-night, and the gentleman too, is both dead." "Dead!" I exclaimed. "Why, you are mistaken. I saw them just this instant on the sands below the cliff." The man looked at me as if he thought me crazy. "I mean the singers, Ma'am,--them as sang at the concert to-night. They was both taken nigh about the same time, was handled just alike, and died here a little while ago, a'most at once, as you might say. Folks is talking hard about the husband of the Madame." Then he added, in a lower tone, confidentially, "They do say he poisoned 'em; for, you see, he it was that dressed the lobster salad at dinner, and made 'em both eat hearty of it, though they were unwilling; and now they have him over in the office there, in custody." "But, my good man," I said, as soon as I could get my breath, "I assure you they are not dead." "Well, Ma'am, if you don't believe my words, you can see 'em with your own eyes, if you choose"; and he led the way into the hall of the hotel.