“_He will not!_” said madame. “The hatred of the living a man may fight, and hope to conquer, but the vengeance of the dead, who then can escape that? Sooner or later it drives ‘the one followed’ to destroy himself. This trouble began twelve years gone by. Hamilton and Burr called it to themselves, that night they tricked justice, slandered the innocent, and let the guilty go free. Snuff the candles, Achille, the room is full of shadows; more light give us, and I will tell you when, and how, the doom of both men was called to them.” There was a few minutes’ delay, during which the silence was unbroken, and then madame continued: “It was in the year of God eighteen hundred, in the month of March, and we had come near to the spring. Mr. Hamilton was then of all the lawyers in New York the most famous, and it was one of the sights of the city to see him going to court with his papers and books. In that month came the trial of Levi Weekes for the murder of the beautiful Gulielma Sands, and Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Burr were united in the defence of Weekes. Very well indeed I knew Elma Sands, for she lived with her uncle and aunt Ring, who were tenants of mine for many years. At the time of her murder they lived in Greenwich Street, near Franklin; and Weekes boarded with them. He was a brother of Ezra Weekes, who kept the famous City Hotel, and with his brother he could have boarded. But not so, with the Rings he stayed, because of Elma, and every one said they were promised to each other, and when the spring came were to be married. Well, then, this dreadful thing happened--Elma Sands went out with Levi Weekes one Sunday in December, 1799, and never again was she seen by any one. Distracted were her uncle and aunt, and everywhere, far and near, Elma was sought. It was no good. What I could do, I did, for I had watched the orphan girl grow from her childhood to her womanhood, and so sorry also was I for the uncle and aunt, who slept not, nor yet rested, and whose terrible suspense was ended in five weeks, by the finding of Elma’s body in a well eighty feet deep. Then the city went wild about her murder; for the appearance of the body left no room for doubt as to what poor Elma’s fate had been; and every one felt quite sure that Levi Weekes was the criminal.” Here madame paused and appeared to be much affected, and Achille, without a word, pushed a glass of water closer to her, and having drank of it, she continued: