In the ashes lay some scattered fragments of paper which crumbled at my touch.

On the floor in front I espied only a stray hair-pin; everything else was in place throughout the room except the cushions and that horror on the lounge, waiting the second look I had so far refrained from giving it.
That look I could no longer withhold.

I must know the depth of the gulf over which I hung.

I must not wrong with a thought one who had smiled upon me like an angel of light--a young girl, too, with the dew of innocence on her beauty to every eye but mine and only not to mine within--shall I say ten awful minutes?
It seemed ages,--all of my life and more.

Yet that lovely breast had heaved not so many times since I looked upon her as a deified mortal, and now two small spots on another woman's pulseless throat had drawn a veil of blood over that beauty, and given to a child the attributes of a Medusa.