He bit his compressed lips till the blood ran.

Opening the door of the chamber into which he had been ushered, he hurried out to seek the freedom of the open air and to set his confused thoughts in order.

On his way his attention was caught by an unexpected sight.

Through an open door he had a full view of a bier, on which rested a coffin, and in the latter, with hands folded on her bosom, lay the woman he had most cruelly wronged.

In those clasped hands he saw a little picture wreathed in evergreen,--his own likeness, which the dead girl had begged her family to bury with her.