Soon after a cablegram from a London lawyer made the widow acquainted with the fact of her husband's recent will, under whose provisions all Vincent Carew's wealth was divided between his wife and her daughter, disinheriting Kathleen for her disobedience, and making no mention of his prodigal step-son, whom he had cordially despised. Alpine was delighted with her good fortune, and her mercurial temperament began to recover itself from the shock it had sustained in Kathleen's loss. CHAPTER XIV. A STRANGE FATE. I never thought that I should see thine eyelids shut in death, Thy bright brow cold, thy spirit quenched that glowed and bloomed beneath. SUMNER LINCOLN FAIRFIELD. Poor Kathleen! she had passed through a strange and terrible experience. On that night when she had been so suddenly choked and robbed by an unseen foe, the young girl had swooned from terror. That quick relapse into unconsciousness had saved her life. Thinking her dead, the murderer had relaxed his hold on her throat, and throwing her roughly from him, escaped with his booty in time to board the other train. Kathleen, by one of those strange psychological conditions sometimes induced by severe mental strain or shock, passed from her swoon into a state of coma or trance. Through the two nights and one day in which she lay thus, her senses seemed to be preternaturally acute, although her bodily faculties were bound in iron bands of inaction. What was her agony during the two hours when she lay alone in the murky darkness and the snow and rain--what her joy when the voice of her beloved penetrated her senses! Saved, saved! And by _him_! How she longed to speak--to utter aloud her joy and relief; but she could not voice her gladness--she could only lie passive and inert, and hear him proclaim her dead in a voice of the bitterest despair. Oh, the blended rapture and agony of those hours! To lie still like a stone, mute, moveless, and hear _his_ voice breathing his love for her, feel his kisses on her cold face and hands! She longed with a terrible yearning to move, to stir beneath his touch, to cry out to him that she was alive, that she loved him even as he loved her; but her body seemed to be as entirely dead as her soul was alive--alive and in agony. She knew that strangers came and went; that they talked of her as dead; that they spoke of her beauty in pitying admiration; that they shuddered at the red finger-marks on her throat, the wounds on her hands and ears where her jewels had been torn away. She felt tears fall often on her cold white face; she heard them talk of an inquest on the morrow, and wonder if her relations from Boston would soon arrive. Then came the moment when Ralph Chainey had to tear himself away from her. She heard gentle Mrs. Churchman talking to him about her, and saying that she was not changed in the least--she was a very natural-looking corpse.