“This, I swear to you, Miss Stirling, was my only reason for the little deception I practised on Leola, and my plan succeeded well. I have won for my own the sweetest, truest heart that ever beat, and I had decided last night to come here to-day to confess all to Leola and her guardian, and to press for an immediate marriage, in order to save her from the persecutions of a rich old man, who has Mr. Hermann in his power, by reason of a mortgage on his property. It was my design to relieve his embarrassment by advancing the amount myself to pay off the mortgage. I hope you will accept this truthful explanation, and forego the gratification of your unwise spite by any persecution of my dear little love, Leola, whom I must now seek.” “You will not have far to seek. Look behind you on the ground!” Miss Stirling answered, with a bitter laugh. Then for the first time he became aware of Leola’s presence--Leola lying like a dead girl on the ground at his feet. In the one moment that he stood gazing down like a statue of despair, Miss Stirling cried, with triumphant malice: “Just before you came in Leola and I had had a very satisfactory explanation, for I recognized you in her description, and I soon made her understand your villainy. Yes, I told her you were betrothed to me, and that you were deceiving her. She believed me, and despised you, and just at the moment of her outcry against you, when you entered and I sprang to your breast, claiming you for my own, she dropped like one with a bullet in her heart, and there she has been lying ever since, and more than likely the poor, deceived girl is really dead of the shock.” “Fiend!” he hurled at her, bitterly, and sank on his knees by Leola, frantically searching for signs of life, kissing her cold, white face, calling on her in love’s holy name to waken for his sake, and speak to him again. Jessie Stirling, listening with outward cold indifference, prayed that Leola would never answer those vows of love, never open her sweet dark eyes again, prayed that death might indeed claim her for his own. And she smiled when all his efforts and all caresses proved vain to bring life back to the stricken girl--smiled even when he turned to her with accusing eyes and cried in bitter agony: “Your false words have broken my little love’s heart, and slain her as surely as if you had struck a dagger into her breast! You have murdered an innocent girl who never wronged you, Jessie Stirling, yet you sit there and smile like the fiend you are! Do you think you can ever know any happiness after this? No, for my hate will follow you through life, and my curse will darken your days and make sleepless your nights till you pray for death’s release!”