child drowned--I watched Emily's face. She looked at the corpse without
a shudder, with frank and brutal curiosity. She had never seen anything
really dead,--it was quite interesting. Well, I hurried back to my
rooms, meaning to catch a night train into Devonshire. On the
mantelpiece was a telegram which had come early in the morning. Alice
was worse--their only hope was in my speedy coming. I dashed into a
hansom, but on the step another telegram was handed to me. Alice was
dead. I had not seen her for ten months, and she was dead."

There was an odd, strained silence. Douglas walked away to the window
and gazed with misty eyes over a wilderness of housetops. Rice's head
had fallen forward upon his arms. It was long before he spoke again.
When he did his tone was changed.

"For days I was stupefied. Then habit conquered. I went to her. I
hoped for sympathy--she laughed at me. It was for the best. Then I
told her truths, and she flung them back at me. I knew then what manner
of woman she was--without heart, vain, callous, soulless. It is the
sport of her life to play with, and cast aside when she is weary of
them, the men whom she thinks it worth while to make her slaves. A
murderess is a queen amongst the angels to her; it is the souls of men
she destroys, and laughs when she sees them sink down into hell. My
eyes were opened, but it was too late. I had lost the girl who loved
me, and whom I loved. I was head over ears in debt, my work had
suffered from constant attendance upon her, I lost my position, and
every chance I ever had in life went with it. I have become an ill-paid
hack, and even to-day I am not free from debt after years of struggling.
Douglas Jesson, I have never spoken of these things to any breathing
man, but every word is the gospel truth."