The Haunted Chamber

"Nay," says Adrian hastily; "you forget. It is no longer yours, you have given it away."

For an instant she glances at him keenly, while her breath comes and goes with painful quickness.

"You have no right to say so," she murmurs at last.

"No, of course not; I beg your pardon," he says apologetically. "It is your own secret."

"There is no secret," she declares nervously. "None."

"I have offended you. I should not have said that. You will forgive me?" he entreats, with agitation.

"You are quite forgiven;" and, as a token of the truth of her words, she leans a little further out of the window, and looks down at him with a face pale indeed, but full of an unutterable sweetness.

Her beauty conquers all his resolutions.

"Oh, Florence," he whispers in an impassioned tone, "if I only dare to tell you what--"

She starts and lays a finger on her lips, as though to enforce silence.

"Hush!" she says, in trembling accents. "You forget! The hour, the surroundings, have momentarily led you astray. I ought not to have spoken with you. Go! There is nothing you dare to tell me--there is nothing I would wish to hear. Remember your duty to another--and--good-night."

"Stay, I implore you, for one moment," he cries; but she is firm, and presently the curtains are drawn close and he is alone.

Slowly he walks back toward the smoking-room, her last words ringing in his ears--"Remember your duty to another." What other? He is puzzled, but, reaching the window of the room, he dismisses these thoughts from his mind, and determines to get rid of his guests without delay, so as to be able to enjoy a little quiet and calm for reflection.

They are all noisily discussing a suicide that had recently taken place in a neighboring county, and which had, from its peculiar circumstances, caused more than usual interest.

One of the guests to-night is an army-surgeon, and he is giving them an explanation as to how the fatal wound had been inflicted. It appeared at the inquest that the unfortunate man had shot himself in such a peculiar manner as to cause considerable doubt as to whether he had been murdered or had died by his own hand. Evidence, however, of a most convincing nature had confirmed the latter theory.

Captain Ringwood, with a revolver in his hand, is endeavoring to show that the man could not have shot himself, just as Adrian re-enters.