Meanwhile, some words uttered near us were slowly making their way into my benumbed brain. The waiter who had raised the first alarm was endeavoring to describe to an importunate group in advance of us what he had come upon in that murderous alcove. “I was carrying about a tray of ices,” he was saying, “and seeing the lady sitting there, went up. I had expected to find the place full of gentlemen, but she was all alone, and did not move as I picked my way over her long train. The next moment I had dropped ices, tray and all. I bad come face to face with her and seen that she was dead. She had been stabbed and robbed. There was no diamond on her breast, but there was blood.” A hubbub of disordered sentences seasoned with horrified cries followed this simple description. Then a general movement took place in the direction of the alcove, during which Mr. Durand stooped to my ear and whispered: “We must get out of this. You are not strong enough to stand such excitement. Don’t you think we can escape by the window over there?” “What, without wraps and in such a snowstorm?” I protested. “Besides, uncle will be looking for me. He came with me, you know.” An expression of annoyance, or was it perplexity, crossed Mr. Durand’s face, and he made a movement as if to leave me. “I must go,” he began, but stopped at my glance of surprise and assumed a different air—one which became him very much better. “Pardon me, dear, I will take you to your uncle. This—this dreadful tragedy, interrupting so gay a scene, has quite upset me. I was always sensitive to the sight, the smell, even to the very mention of the word blood.” So was I, but not to the point of cowardice. But then I had not just come from an interview with the murdered woman. Her glances, her smiles, the lift of her eyebrows were not fresh memories to me. Some consideration was certainly due him for the shock he must be laboring under. Yet I did not know how to keep back the vital question. “Who did it? You must have heard some one say.” “I have heard nothing,” was his somewhat fierce rejoinder. Then, as I made a move, “What you do not wish to follow the crowd there?” “I wish to find my uncle, and he is in that crowd.” Mr. Durand said nothing further, and together we passed down the hall. A strange mood pervaded my mind. Instead of wishing to fly a scene which under ordinary conditions would have filled me with utter repugnance, I felt a desire to see and hear everything. Not from curiosity, such as moved most of the people about me, but because of some strong instinctive feeling I could not understand; as if it were my heart which had been struck, and my fate which was trembling in the balance.