The look of white horror on her face gave me such a shock that I could hardly speak. I heard a whispering going on outside the door. My belief was that Geraldine was dead, and I pressed my hand to my heart while I asked Mrs. Williams to tell me what had happened. "Oh, Sir," she began, "it is too awful! I--I"----she stopped. "In the name of God tell me--what is it?" I cried, leaping from the bed. "The----the----I cannot speak it, Sir; the gardener is below----will you go to him?" "The gardener! Tell me of my wife; is she dead?" "No, Sir. But she is raving wildly. She has told the whole story--how she killed him"----she shook with horror. Something told me what I had to expect. I calmed myself by a supernatural effort. "Where is the gardener?" "He is in the hall, Sir." I left the room. I passed the two servants who stood whispering with pale faces near the door, and ran downstairs. Both gardeners stood in the hall; and both were white as ghosts. "Now," said I, "what have you to tell me?" "Oh zur!" said the man called Farley, "I went into t'orchard this morning to git soom apples for cook, and--and I zeed zigns anigh th' hedge of soom 'un having been there i' th' night. The leaves they was all tossed, and--and the ground fresh dug. Zo I went for my spade, thinkin' summut amiss, an' begun to dig to zee what they moight ha' bin oop to. And zur, in diggin' I strook summat zoft, and clearin' away th' mould, coomed across a hand--a man's hand, zur!" "A man's hand?" "Oh, zur! I wur too frighted to dig vurther, but throws down my spade, and coom runnin' to th' house to tell yer, zur, of what I'd zeen." "Come with me, both of you," I said. "Oh, zur!" they began. "If it be a dead man, of what should you be afraid?" I cried fiercely. "Come." I led the way out, and they followed me. I did not want them to conduct me to the spot; I knew where it was--I knew where she had led me last night. I entered the orchard, the two men behind me. In a few minutes I had reached the place. The soil was broken. Around it the dry leaves and grass lay in heaps, as though scattered by a high wind. Amid the newly-dug mould I saw the fingers of a human hand. "Take that spade and dig," I said. One of the men took it up reluctantly and began to clear away the mould. Bit by bit, as he dug the moist earth out of the grave, first the arm, and then the body of a man completely dressed, appeared. The gardener stooped, took the arm by the sleeve, and raised the body. In spite of the soil that obscured the face, I knew it. _The dead man was Martelli!_ I gazed upon this awful spectacle with fascinated eyes; then my senses forsook me and I fell to the earth. For three weeks I lay as one that is dead. The raging fever that consumed me brought me to the brink of the grave; I was snatched from the jaws of death by a miracle.