proceeded to take such steps as are common in these cases. Having
sent the too-willing Hibbard to notify headquarters, I was on the
point of making a memorandum of such details as seemed important,
when my lantern suddenly went out, leaving me in total darkness.

This was far from pleasant, but the effect it produced upon my mind
was not without its result. For no sooner did I find myself alone
and in the unrelieved darkness of this grave-like room, than I became
convinced that no woman, however frenzied, would make her plunge
into an unknown existence from the midst of a darkness only too
suggestive of the tomb to which she was hastening. It was not in
nature, not in woman's nature, at all events. Either she had
committed the final act before such daylight as could filter through
the shutters of this closed-up room had quite disappeared, - an
hypothesis instantly destroyed by the warmth which still lingered
in certain portions of her body, - or else the light which had been
burning when she pulled the fatal trigger had since been carried
elsewhere or extinguished.

Recalling the uncertain gleams which we had seen flashing from one
of the upper windows, I was inclined to give some credence to the
former theory, but was disposed to be fair to both. So after
relighting my lamp, I turned on one of the gas cocks of the massive
chandelier over my head and applied a match. The result was just
what I anticipated; no gas in the pipes. A meter had not been put
in for the wedding. This the papers had repeatedly stated in
dwelling upon the garish effect of the daylight on the elaborate
costumes worn by the ladies. Candles had not even been provided -
ah, candles! What, then, was it that I saw glittering on a small
table at the other end of the room? Surely a candlestick, or