But the hour came when the mighty King of Terrors summoned her soul into the presence of that forgiving Jesus who wrote upon the sand, at the harlot’s feet--“_Let him among you that is without sin cast the first stone!_” By a murderer’s hand she fell, as had others by her own. And then there was heard a noise in the air without, such as had never before greeted human ears. Whence it came, none could tell. * * * * * Dark and inexplicable Fate! weaver of wild contrasts, demon of this hoary world, that movest through it as a spirit moveth over the waters, filling the depths of things with a solemn mystery, and an everlasting change! Thou sweepest over our graves, and Joy is born from the ashes: thou sweepest over Joy, and lo, it is a grave! Engine and tool of the Almighty, whose years cannot fade! thou changest the earth as a garment, and as a vesture it is changed: thou makest it one vast sepulchre and womb united, swallowing and creating life, and reproducing over and over, from age to age--from creation to the creation’s doom--the same dust and ashes which stalked under the names of the countless millions who danced to the discordant music of life, and gave up the ghost! CHAPTER VI. _The Person and Character of Albert J. Tirrell._ Early on the morning of the awful tragedy which filled the whole country with amazement and dread, and before the newspapers blazed with its horrible details, there was great excitement in the horse-stables and the gambling-shops of Boston. The sucker-sharps, who always, in every part of the world, keep up a telegraphic communication with the frail sisterhood, were on this occasion elated with an event which so absorbed their inquisitive cunning, that they forgot, for a few hours, the game of filching green-horns. Spagnoletto, with all the power of his pencil, would fail in a delineation of those groups of human cormorants, as they surfeited their murderous appetites upon the fresh intelligence. They were jolly-serious--upsetting chairs, swallowing brandy, breaking glasses, and uttering fearful oaths. In one place a sucker preached a tirade to the riotous auditory, himself standing on a large Bible. A murder, of unexampled atrocity, had just been committed by one of the most notorious of their gang. [Illustration: “=Plume’s=” Daguerreotype of Tirrell.]