All gazed at him, and we saw by the spasmodic working of the muscles of his features that what she said was quite true. The agonies of poisoning had already seized him, and his haggard face, fast swelling, was horrible to behold. For a few moments he writhed in the grasp of the officers, while we all looked on in silence, appalled at the frightful picture he presented; until suddenly, with a piercing shriek, he seemed to stretch out his limbs rigid and straight. Then all the light of a sudden died from his hideously distorted features, and the men in whose grip he was knew by the dead weight upon them that they held only a corpse. No further need is there to dwell upon the ghastly events of that fateful night, a night that will live within my memory for ever; nor need I describe how we all four left that den of Satan in company with the police. Suffice it to say that the self-destruction of Francis Vidit caused the disbandment of that disgraceful Pagan sect which fortunately found so little support in Christian England. Although the police were, by these revelations of Muriel's, made aware of the existence of Satanism in London, the suicide of their head made it unnecessary for any details of the _cultus diabolicus_ to be given to the public through the medium of the sensational Press. At first the revulsion of feeling within me caused me, I confess, to hesitate whether to take as wife a woman who had actually been a votary of Satan, but on calmer reflection, as I drove back to Charing Cross Mansions with my loved one at my side, I saw plainly how she had been victimised and held powerless beneath the terrible thraldom of this murderer Vidit and his accomplice Hibbert, who had without doubt both carried on these practices with a view to gain the subscriptions of those who joined the cult. That she was pure, honest, and upright I had never doubted, and moved to sympathy when I remembered how bitterly she had suffered, I yielded to her entreaty to be forgiven, feeling convinced of her assertion that her suspicion that I was guilty of the murder of my friend was the cause of her casting me aside and acting as she did. Just a year has now gone by, and it has been full of changes, for my father dying suddenly, Tixover Hall has come to me, and with Muriel as my wife we live in the old place in perfect contentment and happiness. Jack Yelverton, too, has modified his views regarding the marriage of the clergy, for Aline is now his wife, and in the good work among the poor of the dismal, overcrowded parish of St Peter's, which he pursues with such untiring energy, she, once the priestess of Satan, is now his greatest helpmate. She is trying to make atonement for the flagrant sins she committed before God, and certainly if the ministration of His Word and righteousness of heart will atone for the profanity to which she once was forced because of her love for the man who is now her husband, then a great and blessed forgiveness will be hers.