“When Dr. Hammond comes, let me see him alone,” he whispered.

I made no objection; nothing could frustrate my purpose now.

The physician came,—­a kind old man, who had known us all from infancy.  He was closeted awhile with William; then he came out, looking deeply moved.

“Go to him,—­comfort him, if you can,” he said.

“You have told him?” I asked.

“Yes,—­he insisted upon hearing the truth, and I knew he had got where it could make no difference.  Poor fellow! it was a terrible blow.”

I wanted a few moments for reflection; I sent John in my stead.  I locked myself in my own room, and tried to get the full weight of what I was going to do.  I was about to meet him who had rejected my heart’s best love, no longer in the flush and insolence of health and strength, but doomed, dying,—­with a dark, hopeless eternity stretching out before his shuddering gaze.  And when he turned to me in those last awful moments for solace and affection, I was to tell him that the girl he loved, the woman he adored, had since that one night kept the purpose of vengeance hot in her heart,—­that for years her sole study had been to baffle and to wound him,—­and that now, through all those months that she had been beside him, that he had looked to her as friend, helper, comforter, she had kept her deadly aim in view. She had deceived him with false hopes of recovery; she had turned again to the world the thoughts which he would fain have fixed on heaven; while he was loving her, she had hated him.  She had darkened his life; she had ruined his soul.

Oh, was not this a revenge worthy of the name?

I went to him.  He was sitting in the great easy-chair, propped with pillows; John had left the room, overcome by his feelings.  Never shall I forget that face,—­the despair of those eyes.

I sat down by him and took his hand.

“The Doctor has told you?” I murmured.

“Yes,—­and what is this world which I so soon must enter?  I believe too much to have one moment’s peace in view of what is coming.  Oh, why did I not believe more before it was too late?”

I kept silence a few minutes; then I said,—­

“Listen, William,—­I have something to tell you.”

He looked eagerly toward me;—­perhaps he thought even then, poor dupe, that it was some word of hope, that there was some chance for his recovery.

Then I told him all,—­all,—­my lifelong hatred, my cherished purpose.  Blank amazement was in the gaze that he turned upon me.  I feared that impending death had blunted his senses, and that he did not fully comprehend.

“You will remember now what I once told you,” I cried, with savage joy; “for so surely as there is another world, in that world shall you live, and live to suffer, and to remember in your anguish why you suffer, and to whose hand you owe it.”

He understood well enough now.  “Fiend!” he exclaimed, with a look of horror, and started to his feet.  The effort, the emotion, were too much.  Blood gushed from his lips; a frightful spasm convulsed his features; he fell back; he was gone!