When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.

—Hamlet.

It was Saturday morning when Flora's body was found upon the beach. The necessary inquiry was held that same afternoon, and preparations made for her funeral the following day.

Sunday morning saw her lying cold and quiet in her coffin, ready for interment. Her hands had been gently folded upon her breast, and her face, now free from the effects of contact with the cruel sea, bore an expression of peacefulness and calm. The bereaved parents together visited for the last time the silent frame so soon to be returned to dust. Lizzie and Harry entered and stood in sorrowing sympathy, gazing upon the calm cold face. Tears came naturally to their young eyes, and relieved the aching hearts. They stood in mute meditation for some minutes, and then at a sign from Mr. Bruce turned quietly and left the father and mother alone with their dead. Mr. Bruce, his heart heaving and a dull choking in his throat, bent over and kissed the senseless face. He held his wife's hand in his, and pressed it lovingly as he stood by the bedside, then the other arm stole around her waist, and as he drew her towards him the tears, which had hitherto refused to flow, came welling forth, and she felt relieved page 127 from the strongest oppression of her grief. The great pain at her over-burdened heart seemed lessened, and a soothing sweetness suffused her soul.

Her thoughts were carried back over the brief years of life which her daughter had known, and a great peace filled her heart as she knew the angel spirit was now at rest.

As the husband and wife stood and looked long and lovingly upon the form and features of their dead daughter, the church bells began to toll their sweet and solemn music. The still, clear air of the peaceful Sabbath was peculiarly receptive of the full, deep notes, as they floated quietly to the ears of the numerous church-goers.

One heart that was wont to be made glad at their sounds was stilled. One soul that had felt the softening influence of their melody now listened to the music not heard of mortal ears. In the same room where Flora had often sat listening to the bells she loved so much, lay her cold and spiritless body, now soon to be hidden from human eyes.

The solemn notes of the bells still floated to her ears, but the receptive spirit had fled. The eyes seemed closed, as if she were listening to the sounds, but it was only the sad, cruel mockery of death. While the bells rang on, the parents of this now senseless clay could not tear themselves away with a last loving look. They were now about to leave for ever the form that had as a small tiny bud given them the first taste of parental joys, to consign to the dust the being whose care came to their lives as a blissful possession in the early years of their love and hope, and to look their last upon those lips that had first murmured to them the holy names of “Father” and “Mother.”

What wonder, then, that the silent, saddening influence of their grief bade them stay—bade them not hastily turn aside from the memory of the past, nor shut from their page 128 hearts the solemn satisfaction of a last lingering look at the still, bloodless face. Then the last notes of the bells died away, and with a mutual feeling of fitness these saddened souls turned for ever from the mortal being of their lost child.

That same afternoon when he returned from the funeral, Mr. Bruce found his wife in her daughter's room. She was turning over some of the things which had belonged to Flora, and locking away numbers of articles as sacred to her bereavement. Without interrupting her he stood watching, and presently began looking at the different books in the room. From a shelf over the head of the bed he took down a book which was apparently the last Flora had read. As he turned over the leaves, a paper fell out, which he took up, and opening, saw it was in his daughter's handwriting. He read the first few words, and was startled to find the heading—

“Confession of My Crime.”

Hastily closing it, so as not to attract his wife's attention, he returned it to the book, and shortly afterwards made anexcuse to go to his study.

Then he opened the paper with trembling hands, and read the following dreadful recital:—

“I have just seen the report of the trial of Herman Lane, and become aware of the fact that he is suffering for a crime of which he is innocent. How can I ever face the world again with a knowledge of my sin in my heart, knowing that another is now pining for the crime I have committed, for I am guilty of the murder of William Johnston, although I never imagined his death. Still what I did was a guilty, cruel murder, and only found another victim to that I intended. How can I ever write the words which brand me as the most fiendish of mortals? The cannibal in his most brutal thirst for blood is not more devilish than I, and has ampler excuse.

“What possessed me I know not. I did not think of the enormity of my act—did not know what I did. The full depth of my sin is now only made known to me; now only do I know the dreadful crime I page 129 have committed. When I found that Lizzie had entirely won Harry's love, I knew no peace. Why could I never gain his affection? Was Lizzie always to thwart me? Then as time wore on and I saw their satisfaction with each other, it fairly maddened me, and I schemed and plotted out how I could supplant her in Harry's love. Think how I would, I could not arrive at any course. Then Lizzie came and laughed at me for my stupid love of him, scorned me for daring to aspire to his affection, and I felt the murderous instincts of the tigress within me. Still I could not do more than threaten: no course of action ever came to me.

“One day I read this book, and I found in it a woman whose love was slighted, whose affection was turned to bitterest hate, and my whole soul went out in sympathy towards her. She was plotting to destroy her wronger. What else was I living for? I sought nothing better than a means of killing Lizzie's self-confidence of affection from and for her cousin. This woman's wrongs showed me a way. She poisoned fruit, and gave it as a peace offering to her wronger. I followed her example. Getting some strychnine that I knew was in the house, I put some into an orange, and left it and another for Lizzie in her room, feeling certain in her selfishness she would eat them both.

“I could not bear to look at her after this, and avoided all faces, knowing what I had done, and what must be the consequences. Days passed and became more than a week, and still nothing occurred, and I grew callous and indifferent to all, but still could not bear the sight of my sister. To my books I flew for forgetting, and heard nothing of the death of William Johnston. To-day I saw a paper with the report of the trial, and eagerly devoured it. Harry's evidence told me the awful truth. These oranges Lizzie had given to him, and the one he had given to the cashier was poisoned. Oh! God! forgive me? I am guilty of his death! My blind, mad act has recoiled upon myself, and I am lost for ever. How can I ever face anybody again. I have only one course open to me—death and oblivion.

“My love for Harry has been my ruin. It has led me by wrong paths to my destruction. I will go to the place where the fatal powerful passion was born, and by the great sea perhaps a forgetting may come. The waves are kind, and may take me to their bosom and blot out the memory of my sin.

“Father! mother! forgive me; I cannot see you again! Forgive! forgive! as no one else can, and do not curse my memory! What I have written is the naked truth. It is hurriedly written, but too dreadful to read over.

“Father, mother, forgive your deeply-loving, but erring daughter,

“Harry, think of me in kin—”

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What she would have written to her cousin was obliterated.

When Mr. Bruce finished reading these terrible words, the paper fell from his grasp, and he sank back in horror into his chair. Then he thought of his wife. He must keep this knowledge from her; so he nerved himself to the task of appearing calm, took up the confession, and replacing it in the book, locked it away in the drawer of his table.

Then he started out for a walk in his garden, so that he might, under the influence of the cool air, decide what was best to do. The book he had locked away was the last Flora had read. It was called Lucretia's Revenge; or, A Story of Love and Hate, and heavy pencil lines had been drawn in the margin opposite the following passages:—

Philip Douglas coolly sat down opposite his companion. He had nerves of iron, and nothing disturbed him. Had he not won for his wife the girl he loved so madly? What mattered it to him what hearts he had broken? What mattered it what loves he had despised? What mattered it what lives he had ruined? Was not love a feeling to be enjoyed? Were not hearts things to be used? Was not life a time for change and excitement?

No one who saw him sipping his wine and whispering soft things could have believed that this man had once stood to his companion in the light of more than a lover, and had filled her breast with hopes and expectations, only to be rudely crushed at the first palling of his feelings, or lightly encouraged at the next opportunity.

Lucretia, on the other hand, was far from calm.

She had made strong efforts to appear so, but she had at length given up the attempt in despair.

Her eyes were wildly bright; her cheeks flushed, not with health, but with excitement; her bosom rose and fell pantingly and unevenly; her parched lips burned with feverish heat, as she partook sparingly of the fruit before her.

Yet he noticed not these signs, except as signs of natural emotion.

“Lucretia,” he said, “why could not this have been without all the terrible scenes through which we have both passed? Why could page 131 we not agree to be firm friends, instead of implacable and remorseless foes? Oh! what a happy, peaceful place this seems after all I have suffered?”

“It is, indeed,” she murmured, as she drank some wine, and poured out a large glass for him, handed it to him, and nestled up closer to him.

His head dropped on her shoulder.

The balmy evening breeze began to freshen, and the shadows began to fall.

Yet still they sat there, and at length Philip Douglas, yielding to the soporific influence of evening, or the more deleterious influence of a drug, fell off to sleep.

Lucretia watched him eagerly.

“Sleep has come at last!” she murmured, triumphantly.

Then gradually she moved his head from her shoulder, so that it rested upon the back of the seat.

Rising, she gazed at him for some moments in anxious expectation. But he woke not.

“I must finish this quickly, or my strength will fail me,” she said, shudderingly.

Forth from its concealment in the soft bosom, upon which Philip Douglas had hoped to rest his head for many a weary hour, she drew a packet, and quickly opening it, she made an opening in one of the largest and rosiest apples, placing a quantity within, firmly pressed together the luscious edges of the fruit, and placed it on his plate before him.

Then taking with her the wine and all the other fruit, she turned and fled, tripping nimbly over the grass, and passing noiselessly as a snowflake. On entering the house she went into a back room, and seating herself at a window, whence she could command a view of the chestnut grove, she called a servant.

“Louie,” she said to a sprightly French girl, who was anticipating a pleasant and easy time of it with the newly-married couple, “you can go into town now. Do not be too late.”

The girl went at once.

She did not start much too soon.

Scarcely had her tripping feet left the house when Lucretia saw Philip Douglas awake.

He woke with a start, and sprang up.

Then, as if devoured by fever, he looked about for the wine which Lucretia had carefully removed, but seeing nothing but the apple, he seized that, and ate it ravenously to appease his thirst.

For a moment he stood still and erect.

But it was only for a moment.

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In another instant his features were contracted as with internal agony, his frame quivered, and after swaying to and fro like the bough of a great tree, the strong man fell prone to the ground.

“He is dead!” cried Lucretia, her face lighting up with a terrible triumph; “I am free now for life!”

Within half an hour afterwards she, having collected all her jewels and money, was speeding along in a first-class railway carriage towards Paris.

Mr. Bruce paced to and fro in a secluded path of his garden, consumed with anxious thoughts. The terrible secret he had learned almost unmanned him. He saw clearly that only one course was open to him. This, too, was the best for him, as it required immediate action, and would divert his thoughts from the awful truth. He must at once take steps to have Herman Lane set free. There must be no half measures: the effort must be complete. He could now assure the authorities of the convict's innocence, but at what a terrible cost? Could he achieve this end and still avoid the dreadful secret being made public? Could he keep it from the anxious wife and mother? At all risks justice must be done, and Lane's life saved. Such a revelation as had come to him would kill Mrs. Bruce. If no other means could be adopted, he must take her away on a lengthened tour, and in the change of scene probably active interest would avoid the knowledge, or, if learned, help to soften its effect.

His mind was made up, and he returned to the house. With a feeling of calm resolve at his heart, he sought his wife's presence, without exhibiting any sign of the painful struggle that had so lately gone on within him.