"
"But, when she went," broke from the pallid lips of the man before
her, "when she was taken away from the house, what then?"
"Ah," returned the agitated woman. "what then! Do you not think I
suffered? To be held by my oath, an oath I was satisfied she would
wish kept even at this crisis, yet knowing all the while she was
drifting away into some evil that you, if you knew who she was, would
give your life to avert from your honor if not from her innocent
head! To see you cold, indifferent, absorbed in other things, while
she, who would have perished any day for your happiness, was losing
her life perhaps in the clutches of those horrible villains! Do not
ask me to tell you what I have suffered since she went; I can never
tell you,-- innocent, tender, noble-hearted creature that she was."
"Was?" His hand clutched his heart as if it had been seized by a
deathly spasm. "Why do you say was?"
"Because I have just come from the Morgue where she lies dead."
"No, no," came in a low shriek from his lips, "that is not she; that
is another woman, like her perhaps, but not she."
"Would to God you were right; but the long golden braids! Such hair as
hers I never saw on anyone before."
"Mr. Blake is right," I broke in, for I could not endure this scene
any longer.
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