Despite her jealousy, despite her caprice, Camille adored her young husband; and as the thought of what had happened awhile ago rushed over her mind, and she realized how nearly she had lost him, she did not regret the terrible deed she had done. She rejoiced rather in the cleverness with which she had rid herself of her terrible foe. Now and then, in the pauses of their talk, there came to her a thought of Robert Lacy, and she wondered if his dead body would ever be found. Would Lord Stuart ever know what had become of his servant? for such she had gathered from his words he was. She shuddered violently at thought of the danger she had been in at the hotel. Well, it was all over now. She was free--safe! The swirling river was swiftly bearing away all evidence of her ghastly crime. Oh, God! how cruelly she had hated the man whom she had sent to his death; yet she would not have had his death on her hands could she have helped it. “But there was no other way.” She shuddered over and over as she lay sleepless by her beloved’s side through the long hours of the night, for the horror of bloodshed was upon her. She would never sleep sweetly again. She would wake trembling many a time with the sound of the river soughing in her ears, to live over in memory that scene beneath the cypress-trees; to see the dark, fiendish face of Robert Lacy; to feel him struggle in her arms as she struck the knife into his breast; to sicken as the hot blood spurted into her face and deluged her dress. She would remember always how much water it had taken to wash the stains away, and how guiltily she had stolen home in the twilight gloom, thankful for once that Finette was gone, and that she had no prying maid to take notice when she crept into her own room of the wet and draggled clothes she wore, and of the shivering fit that seized her as she fell on the floor, moaning faintly: “Oh, God, I did not think I would ever be a murderess! I betrayed him to the vigilantes, I know, but their hands drew the fatal rope, not mine. I believed him dead so long that even his memory had grown dim in my mind till I saw and knew him again. But I would not have killed him if I could have bought him off. It was his own fault--brutal and relentless ever, he brought his fate on himself. I--I--did not let Finette murder that child, much as I hated her. It seemed too horrible. But sin has fallen on me, anyway. Ah! now I know why Lord Stuart’s face was so strangely familiar. He was in the crowd around the gallows-tree. I wonder if he saw my face there? But, thank Heaven! no, for I remember that I fled from the scene as if pursued by fiends, and soon made good my escape to my father.” From those wild mutterings she had to drag herself up to dress and meet her husband, who was coming straight from the presence of innocent Little Sweetheart, to meet the wife who had rushed wildly from that terrible scene by the river, with blood-stained hands, to his embrace.