Seizing my hands, she actually fell on her knees before me, flashing into my eyes all the loveliness of her pallid, upturned face.

“It was not a coincidence!” she passionately sobbed. “Why can’t you be frank with me, and tell me how it is that I have killed him? He said long ago — do you not remember? — that I was fatal to him. He was getting better — you yourself said so — till I came, and then he died.”

What could I reply? The girl was uttering the thoughts which had haunted me for days.

I tried to smile a reassurance, and raising her as gently as I could, I led her back to her chair. It was on my part a feeble performance.

“You are suffering from a nervous crisis,”