same appearance that it had worn before he found it, and hastened away,
leaving the horror there on the wood-path.

He had been gone only a few minutes when another step, a light woman's
step, [was heard] coming along the pathway, and Alice appeared, having on
her usual white mantle, straying along with that fearlessness which
characterized her so strangely, and made her seem like one of the
denizens of nature. She was singing in a low tone some one of those airs
which have become so popular in England, as negro melodies; when
suddenly, looking before her, she saw the blood-stained body on the
grass, the face looking ghastly upward. Alice pressed her hand upon her
heart; it was not her habit to scream, not the habit of that strong,
wild, self-dependent nature; and the exclamation which broke from her was
not for help, but the voice of her heart crying out to herself. For an
instant she hesitated, as [if] not knowing what to do; then approached,
and with her white, maiden hand felt the brow of the dead man,
tremblingly, but yet firm, and satisfied herself that life had wholly
departed. She pressed her hand, that had just touched the dead man's, on
her forehead, and gave a moment to thought.

What her decision might have been, we cannot say, for while she stood in
this attitude, Middleton stept from his seclusion, and at the noise of
his approach she turned suddenly round, looking more frightened and
agitated than at the moment when she had first seen the dead body. She
faced Middleton, however, and looked him quietly in the eye. "You see
this!" said she, gazing fixedly at him. "It is not at this moment that
you first discover it."

"No," said Middleton, frankly. "It is not. I was present at the
catastrophe. In one sense, indeed, I was the cause of it; but, Alice, I