the floor, on which the long raven hair was spread abroad in a disordered mass.  The victor gazed coolly on her work while recovering breath; and then, to make assurance doubly sure, took up, as she thought, a stocking from the bed and deliberately tied it tight round the neck of the corpse.  Then, gliding to the door, she quitted the scene of her fearful labors as noiselessly as she had entered, leaving behind her not one trace of her presence,—­but leaving, unintentionally, a most fatal false trace, which suspicion continued to follow until it had run an entirely innocent man to his grave.  The last act of the drama of woman’s passion and woman’s revenge was over; the tragedy of man’s suffering and endurance still went on.

How or by whom the terrible spectacle in that chamber of death was first discovered we are not told.  All we know, from the reports of the negroes, is, that Captain Wilde, who seemed stupefied at first, suddenly passed into a state of excitement little short of distraction,—­now raving, as if to an imaginary listener, and then questioning and threatening those about him with incoherent violence.  To these simple observers such conduct was entirely incomprehensible; but we may easily suppose that at this moment the unfortunate man first realized the fearful nature of the circumstances which surrounded him, and perceived the abyss which had yawned so suddenly at his feet.  And no wonder that he shrank back from the prospect, overwhelmed for the moment with consternation and despair,—­not the prospect of death, but of a degradation far worse to the proud spirit of the Kentucky gentleman, on whose good name even political hatred had never been able to fix a stain.

The terrified negroes carried the alarm to the nearest neighbors, and soon the report of this appalling occurrence was flying like lightning toward the utmost bounds of the county.  The first stranger who reached the scene of death was Mr. Summers, formerly an intimate friend of Captain Wilde.  When he entered the room, he found the poor gentleman on his knees beside the body of his child, with his face buried in the bed-clothes.  At the sound of footsteps he raised his wild, tearless eyes, exclaiming, “My God! my God!  Mr. Summers, my wife has been murdered here, in my own room, and it will be laid on me!” Shocked by the almost insane excitement of his old friend, and sensible of the imprudence of his words, Summers begged him to compose himself, pointing out the danger of such language.  But the terrible thought had mastered his mind with a monomaniacal power, and to every effort at consolation from those who successively came in the only reply was, “Oh, my God, it will all be laid upon me!” Fortunately, those who heard these expressions were old friends, who, although they had been long unfamiliar, knew the native uprightness of the man, and still felt kindly toward one whose estrangement they knew was the effect of weak submission to the dictation of