"Get up, Mavis!" I cried--"Do not kneel there! Go,--go out of this room,--out of my sight! You do not know what she was--this woman whom I married,--I deemed her an angel, but she was a fiend,--yes, Mavis, a fiend! Look at her, staring at her own image in the glass,--you cannot call her beautiful--_now_! She smiles, you see,--just as she smiled last night when, ... ah, you know nothing of last night! I tell you, go!" and I stamped my foot almost furiously,--"This air is contaminated,--it will poison you! The perfume of Paris and the effluvia of death intermingled are sufficient to breed a pestilence! Go quickly,--inform the household their mistress is dead,--have the blinds drawn down,--show all the exterior signs of decent and fashionable woe!"--and I began laughing deliriously--"Tell the servants they may count upon expensive mourning,--for all that money can do shall be done in homage to King Death! Let everyone in the place eat and drink as much as they can or will,--and sleep, or chatter as such menials love to do, of hearses, graves and sudden disasters;--but let _me_ be left alone,--alone with _her_;--we have much to say to one another!" White and trembling, Mavis rose up and stood gazing at me in fear and pity. "Alone? ..." she faltered--"You are not fit to be alone!" "No, I am not fit to be, but I must be,"--I rejoined quickly and harshly--"This woman and I loved--after the manner of brutes, and were wedded or rather mated in a similar manner, though an archbishop blessed the pairing, and called upon Heaven to witness its sanctity! Yet we parted ill friends,--and dead though she is, I choose to pass the night with her,--I shall learn much knowledge from her silence! To-morrow the grave and the servants of the grave may claim her, but to-night she is mine!" The girl's sweet eyes brimmed over with tears. "Oh you are too distracted to know what you are saying," she murmured--"You do not even try to discover how she died!" "That is easy enough to guess,"--I answered quickly, and I took up a small dark-coloured bottle labelled 'Poison' which I had already perceived on the toilet-table--"This is uncorked and empty. What it contained I do not know,--but there must be an inquest of course,--people must be allowed to make money for themselves out of her ladyship's rash act! And see there,--" here I pointed to some loose sheets of note-paper covered with writing, and partially concealed by a filmy lace handkerchief which had evidently been hastily thrown across them, and a pen and inkstand close by--"There is some admirable reading prepared for me doubtless!--the last message from the beloved dead is sacred, Mavis Clare; surely you, a writer of tender romances, can realize this!--and realizing it, you will do as I ask you,--leave me!" She looked at me in deep compassion, and slowly turned to go. "God help you!" she said sobbingly--"God console you!"