“Do you think I will leave that work to others?” she said. “It is my business, it is all that God has left me to do in this world. It is my business to see that his murderer suffers,—not as I suffer—that can never be,—but all that the law can do—the law which is so merciful to murderers nowadays. You don’t think he can get off lightly, do you, uncle? They will hang him, won’t they? Hang him—hang him—hang him,” she repeated, in hoarse dull syllables. “A few moments’ agony after a night of terror. So little—so little! And I have to live my desolate life. My punishment is for a lifetime.” “My love, God will be good to you. He can lighten all burdens,” murmured Mr. Dalbrook, gently. “He cannot lighten mine, not by the weight of a single hair. He has stretched forth His hand against me in hatred and anger, perhaps because I loved His creature better than I loved Him.” “My dearest, this is madness——” “I did, I did,” she reiterated. “I loved my husband better than I loved my God. I would have worshipped Satan if I could have saved him by Satan’s help. I loved him with all my heart, and mind, and strength, as we are taught to love God. There was not room in my heart for any other religion. He was the beginning and the end of my creed. And God saw my happy love and hated me for it. He is a jealous God. We are taught that when we are little children. He is a jealous God, and He put it into the head of some distracted creature to come to that window and shoot my husband.” A violent fit of hysteria followed these wild words. Matthew Dalbrook felt that all attempts at consolation must needs be vain for some time to come. Until this tempest of grief was calmed nothing could be done. “She will have her mother here in a day or two,” said Theodore. “That may bring some comfort.” Juanita heard him even in the midst of her hysterical sobbing. Her hearing was abnormally keen. “No one, no one can comfort me, unless they can give me back my dead.” She started up suddenly from the sofa where Matthew had placed her, and grasped his arm with convulsive force. “Take me to him,” she entreated, “take me to him, uncle. You were always kind to me. They won’t let me go to him. It is brutal, it is infamous of them. I have a right to be there.” “By-and-by, my dear girl, when you are calmer.” “I will be calm this instant if you will take me to him,” she said, commanding herself at once, with a tremendous effort, choking down those rising sobs, clasping her convulsed throat with constraining hands, tightening her tremulous lips. “See,” she said, “I am quite calm now. I will not give way again. Take me to him. Let me see him—that I may be sure my happy life was not all a dream—a mad-woman’s dream—as it seems to have been now, when I cannot look upon his face.” Mr. Dalbrook looked at his son interrogatively.