Gilbert went to the bedside, and, seating himself there quietly, looked intently at the altered face, which stared at him without a gleam of recognition.
"Speak to me, John Saltram," he said.

"You know me, don't you--the man who was once your friend, Gilbert Fenton ?" The other burst into a wild bitter laugh.

"Gilbert Fenton--my friend, the man who trusts me still! Poor old Gilbert! and I fancied that I loved him, that I would have freely sacrificed my own happiness for his." "And yet you betrayed him," Gilbert said in a low distinct voice.

"But that may be forgiven, if you have been guilty of no deeper wrong than that.

John Saltram, as you have a soul to be saved, what have you done with Marian--with--your wife ?" It cost him something, even in that moment of excitement, to pronounce those two words.
"Killed her!" the sick man answered with the same mad laugh.