It was eight days later. Elizabeth's trouble and the New Year were both a week old. She had lived through the time somehow or another, had even faced those smaller trials which follow in the wake of any great catastrophe. She had told the whole truth to her aunts—it was only less hard than telling Gerard—she had written to her friends to announce the breaking of her engagement, and had countermanded the orders for her trousseau. These affairs disposed of, she was ready to face the world with such strength as she had left.

For Gerard the situation was simpler. He had taken at once his man's way out of it, and pacing the deck of an ocean steamer, he tried to distract his mind and forget his trouble in plans for extensive travel and scientific research. They had been his resource once before, when a woman had disappointed him.

He had not seen Elizabeth again. He dreaded, perhaps, to trust himself, or perhaps his anger was still too great. But he had written before he left to her aunts, urging them to consult a lawyer and take steps at once to free her from the results of her rash marriage. To himself, he justified this weakness—if it were weakness—by the thought of Halleck's baseness. "I could not bear to think of her as his wife," he said to himself, "a fellow who could give her up for money!"

Upon Elizabeth's aunts the affair had come like a thunderbolt. They were quite unprepared for it, though many suspicious circumstances—the mystery as to Elizabeth's jewels, her own occasional words—might have suggested the idea that something was amiss. But absorbed in their delight in the engagement, their affection for Gerard, they had not the heart to formulate any doubt they might have felt. Now, in the first shock of their awakening, they remembered unwillingly the same facts of family history which had occurred to Gerard. What could they have expected from Malvina's child but deceit, folly and disgrace? But they were gentle souls, and had no reproaches for Elizabeth, only a silent, sorrowful pity, which hurt the girl's proud spirit more than the sharpest words.

She was lingering that morning, pale and languid, over her untasted breakfast, and Miss Cornelia, from behind the coffee-urn, stole anxious glances towards her, all sense of injury lost in her distress over the girl's wretched looks, and fear that she was going to be ill. They two were alone, Miss Joanna having already started to do her marketing, when the maid entered with the belated newspaper. Miss Cornelia held out her delicate, tremulous hand for it, nervously apprehensive of that paragraph which no doubt in the society columns, announced that the engagement between Miss Van Vorst and Mr. Gerard had been broken "by mutual consent."

It was not this notice which met her eyes, but some exciting head-lines on the first page which had already attracted the attention of the cook and the housemaid.

"Elizabeth," said Miss Cornelia, in a stifled voice. "Elizabeth—what is this?"

Elizabeth raised her vacant eyes, and saw Miss Cornelia deathly white and staring in horror at the paper. "Is it?" she said. "It must be. What a dispensation! So young, too."

"Auntie," said Elizabeth, impatiently, "why don't you say what it is?"

"I am afraid he was very ill prepared," said Miss Cornelia, apparently talking to herself and oblivious of her niece's presence. But suddenly she seemed to realize it and placed her hand over the paper. "My dear, don't look at this yet," she faltered. "You—it will be a shock, Elizabeth. Prepare yourself."

Elizabeth did not wait to hear more, but went to her and seized the paper from her hand. The headline told, in large type, how Paul Halleck, the prominent young singer, had died the evening before of a mysterious draught of poison, which had been sent to him by mail.

There followed in smaller type the details of the affair, but Elizabeth did not read them. She sank into the nearest chair and sat staring before her with dilated eyes, that seemed to express less surprise or terror than a sort of awe, as at some unexpected manifestation of Providence.

"It was I who killed him," she said. She spoke in a dull, dream-like way, not in the least conscious, as it seemed, of anything extraordinary in the words. Poor Miss Cornelia could form no other conclusion than that she had suddenly lost her mind.

"Elizabeth, my darling," she remonstrated, "what do you mean?" But Elizabeth was still staring before her vacantly, absorbed in her own thoughts.

"And so it has happened!" she said, in a low voice, "at last!—when I had given up hope!"—She was quite oblivious of her aunt's horror or of the staring eyes of the maid, who stood listening, the coffee-pot in her hand, her mouth wide open. But at that moment Miss Cornelia suddenly remembered her presence and signed to her to leave the room—an order obeyed reluctantly.

"Now, Elizabeth," Miss Cornelia faltered out, as the door closed, "do, my darling, explain what you mean. It's quite absurd, you know, to say that you had anything to do with this."

"I wished it," said Elizabeth, gazing at her with dull, expressionless eyes. "I wished, I even prayed, that he might die. And my wishes always come true—only it is in such a way that it does no good."

"But you can't," urged Miss Cornelia, in desperation, "you can't kill people by wishing, Elizabeth. Of course, there are things that one can't—feel as sorry for as one would like"—Her voice faltered, as she thought of certain individuals connected with her own life, whose death it had been hard to regard in the light of an affliction. "We can't help our thoughts," she murmured, "we can only pray not to give way to them."

"Ah, but I didn't," said Elizabeth. "I encouraged them. And now I shall have remorse, I suppose, all my life." She sat pondering a moment, while the expression on her face grew softer. "I am sorry he is dead," she said, at last. "It does me no good now—and he seemed so full of life the last time I saw him. But it was his fate, no doubt—a fortune-teller told him he would die before the year was out. It was his unlucky year, as well as mine. And the prediction has come true—in both cases."

"But how did it happen?" urged Miss Cornelia. "Do read, Elizabeth, how it was. Did he drink poison by mistake?"

Elizabeth took up the paper and read the story, which grew to be a famous one in the annals of New York crime. Halleck had received on New Year's Eve a package which contained a small hunting-flask of sherry. There was no name or card with the present—if present it were; nothing to identify the giver, except the hand-writing on the package, which he did not recognize.

He suspected nothing, however, imagining the card to have been forgotten, and accepted the flask as a belated Christmas present; but kept it unopened, in the hope of discovering from whom it came. He had brought it out and showed it the night before to some friends, and the flask and the box in which it arrived were passed from one to the other, but each disclaimed all knowledge of them.

"To me," said D'Hauteville, who happened to be present, "it looks like a woman's handwriting, disguised to seem like a man's. Perhaps"—he smiled—"it contains a love potion."

"Or a death potion," suggested another man, laughing.

"I'm not afraid," said the young singer, lightly, "of either catastrophe." With a smile he poured some of the wine into a glass and raised it to his lips. "To the health," he said, "of the mysterious giver." He emptied the glass and put it down, observing that it must be, after all, a woman's gift, since no man would have chosen such poor wine. "Try it," he said, but by some fortunate chance no one did. And in a few minutes Halleck was taken desperately ill, and died before the hastily-summoned physician could save him.

This is, briefly put, the account which Elizabeth read, at first with a strange sense of unreality, as if such tragedies, of which she had often read before in the papers, could not possibly occur within the circle of her own acquaintance. Then followed a growing horror, a feeling of passionate remorse for her own indifference.

"Read it, auntie," she said, thrusting the paper into Miss Cornelia's hand. "I—I must be alone to think it over." She went quickly and shut herself in her room. But when there she did not lie down and cry, as might have been best for her; she had not shed any tears since New Year's Eve. She paced up and down, going over the whole thing in her mind, imagining the details with a feverish vividness, struggling, above all, with this irrational, yet terrible sense of guilt.

It was irrational—this she realized even in her state of feverish excitement. The vindictive wish which had crossed her brain would never have gone beyond it and resolved itself into action. She would not even—she knew this now—have been a passive factor in Paul's death; she would have been the first to go to his aid, had she seen him suffering. No selfish remembrance of her own gain would have stopped her. And yet—and yet—with all her reasoning, her mind always returned to the same point. She had wished for his death, and her wishes had been fulfilled, too late for her own advantage, only as it seemed, to add to her punishment.

The idea occurred to her all at once that she must go and look at his dead body. It presented itself, in some irrational way, in the light of an atonement. The fever in her blood, the beginning of an illness, made the strained, hysterical thought seem natural and almost inevitable. She was not conscious of doing anything unusual. Hastily, she dressed herself, choosing instinctively a black gown and tying a black veil over her face, and went out into the street, where the cold air, which she had not faced for a week, blew refreshingly on her burning cheeks. She walked all the way, rapidly, choosing unfrequented avenues, and looking neither to the right nor the left, her mind intent on the one object, yet with a strange relief in motion and the intense cold. She reached Carnegie Hall in a surprisingly short time, but here she encountered unexpected difficulties.

"Take you up to Mr. Halleck's studio?" said the elevator-man, looking with surprise and suspicion at this veiled young woman, who made such an extraordinary request. "I can't take you up. The police has charge, and there ain't a soul allowed to go in but Mr. D'Hauteville."

Elizabeth was not in a mood to be gainsaid. She placed a coin in the man's hand. "I must see him," she said, in a hoarse whisper. "If you won't take me up, I'll walk. I am his wife," she went on, as he still stared at her, wondering. "I have a right to see him."

"Well, it's the police that settles that," he rejoined, gruffly, but still he took her up, reflecting that, after all, it was no business of his. He brought the elevator to a stand-still, with a shake of the head and an anxious look towards the fatal studio, but Elizabeth moved towards it as if she had no doubt whatever of entering. And at the same moment, Mr. D'Hauteville opened the door of his rooms on the same landing, and came face to face with her.

"Miss Van Vorst!" he exclaimed, staring at her; then, in a lower voice: "For Heaven's sake, don't come here. Halleck is dead. Haven't you heard?"

"Yes, I—I have heard." She looked pleadingly at him. "Mr. D'Hauteville," she said, "take me in to see him. I—I must see him. It was such a shock. I am his wife, you know," she added. The disclosure, which she had once so dreaded, fell from her lips indifferently, as if it were a thing of small importance, compared with the gaining of her purpose.

"His wife!" D'Hauteville fell back and stared at her incredulously. Then his mind quickly grasped the explanation of facts which had puzzled him. He looked at her and saw that she was suffering from terrible distress and excitement. "Do you really wish to see him?" he said. "It would be painful."

"Yes, I—I must see him." Elizabeth raised confidingly her troubled eyes, and D'Hauteville apparently could not resist their appeal. Slowly and reluctantly he unlocked the studio door and allowed Elizabeth to enter. The hall was empty, but from behind the portiÈre at the end came the sound of voices. D'Hauteville cast an anxious glance towards them, but he opened quickly another door, and led the way into the bedroom, which was still and dark, and close with a strange, oppressive atmosphere. D'Hauteville, treading softly, drew up the shade. Then he fell back and turned his eyes away.

Elizabeth felt no fear, though her only recollection of death was connected with a horrible moment in her childhood, when they had led her in trembling to look at her father in his coffin. But now she felt indifferent to any trivial terrors. She stood by the bedside looking down at the dead man, and put out her hand and touched the curls which clustered about his forehead. He was not much changed; the greatest difference which death had made was in a certain look of dignity, which his face had never worn in life. It was impossible, standing there, to think of his faults, or of any harm that he had wrought in her life. She only remembered that he had been her first lover—nothing more.

A few moments passed, and then D'Hauteville pulled down the shades and drew her gently from the room. The tears were falling fast behind her veil, and the hand that rested against his was icy cold.

"I had better see you home," he said anxiously, but she shook her head.

"No, no, thank you. You have been very kind, but I—I would rather not. Mr. D'Hauteville," she said, raising piteous eyes to his "who—who could have done it?"

"God only knows!" said D'Hauteville, with a sigh. "No one else, I believe, ever will."

He had rung the bell, and they stood waiting for the elevator, when she turned to him. "It was not I," she said, "don't ever think that it was I." And at that moment the elevator stopped and she was borne away, before there was time for further words. But D'Hauteville stood paralyzed.

"For Heaven's sake," he asked himself, "why did she say that? Who accused her?"

Elizabeth, as she went her way, was quite unconscious of the impression her words had produced. Her head felt confused, and after she left Carnegie there followed a blank interval, during which she wandered aimlessly, but found herself at last, as if led by some involuntary instinct, in the Park beside the lake, into which a few weeks before she had thrown her wedding ring. Now, as before, it was nearly covered with a thin coating of ice, yet there was a strip of water visible, and upon this her eyes fastened with a thrill of terrified fascination. She pictured it involuntarily, closing over her, dragging her down, blotting out all thoughts, all feelings.... A moment of agony, perhaps, and then? Rest, oblivion, an end of all struggle, no more to-morrows to be faced, no more regrets.... The thought of death, the one way out, the only remedy, swift and sure, appealed to her with a force almost irresistible.

If only the water were not so cold!—In an instant there swept over her, quite as inevitably, the natural, healthy reaction; the revulsion against the icy pond, and all the weird, uncanny, frightful, unpleasant associations that it conjured up. Ah, she had not the courage!—not then, at least. She closed her eyes, shutting out the strange fascination of the water gleaming in the pale chill sunlight, and promising its sure and terrible relief—she closed her eyes and turned resolutely away. A horror seized upon her of herself and of loneliness, of the bleak desolation on every side. She hastened, breathing heavily, towards the entrance of the Park, her hurried foot-steps on the crisp, hard path sounding unnaturally loud in the wintry silence.