She closed it again, and paced the room.  There were no tears in her eyes; but they were wide open, startled, despairing.  For the first time in her terrible life she had loved.

“But he kissed me before he went,” she said, pleadingly, to herself; “he kissed me—­he kissed me!”

She said it when the solemn city bells struck three.  She said it when the first dim light of dawn stole into the chamber.  And when the full day broke, and she heard the earliest footfalls in the street, her heart clung to it as the only memory left to her of all her life: 

“He kissed me! he kissed me!”

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

DUST TO DUST.

Scarcely had Abel left the bank, after obtaining the money, than Gabriel came in, and, upon seeing the notes which Mr. Van Boozenberg had shown him, in order to make every thing sure in so large a transaction, announced that they were forged.  The President was quite beside himself, and sat down in his room, wringing his hands and crying; while the messenger ran for a carriage, into which Gabriel stepped with Mr. Van Boozenberg, and drove as rapidly as possible to the office of the Chief of Police, who promised to set his men to work at once; but the search was suddenly terminated by the bills found upon the body of Abel Newt.

The papers were full of the dreadful news.  They said they were deeply shocked to announce that a disgrace had befallen the whole city in the crime which had mysteriously deprived his constituency and his country of the services of the young, talented, promising representative, whose opening career had seemed to be in every way so auspicious.  By what foul play he had been made way with was a matter for the strictest legal investigation, and the honor of the country demanded that the perpetrators of such an atrocious tragedy should be brought to condign punishment.

The morning papers followed next day with fuller details of the awful event.  Some of the more enterprising had diagrams of the shop, the blind, the large yellow barrels that held the liquor pure as imported, the bench, the counter, and the spot (marked O) where the officer had found the body.  In parlors, in banks, in groceries and liquor-shops, in lawyers’ rooms and insurance offices, the murder was the chief topic of conversation for a day.  Then came the report of the inquest.

There was no clew to the murderers.  The eager, thirsty-eyed crowd of men, and women, and children, crushing and hanging about the shop, gradually loosened their gaze.  The jury returned that the deceased Abel Newt came to his death by the hands of some person or persons unknown.  The shop was closed, officers were left in charge, and the body was borne away.

General Belch was in his office reading the morning paper when Mr. William Condor entered.  They shook hands.  Upon the General’s fat face there was an expression of horror and perplexity, but Mr. Condor was perfectly calm.