Middletown transcript., 1891-04-30
night" and passed hurriedly out.
| was fortunate enough To meet j


night" and passed hurriedly out.
! was fortunate enough to meet n,
one, going or coming. | regained th'
room, pushed open the door, and find
ing everything in order, proceeded al
, once to the bed, upon which, after
; taking off my hat and cloak and care.
full concealing them, l lay down and
deftly covered myself ur.
My idea was this-that by some
mesmeric influence of which she was
ignorant the nurse had been forced
to either poison the glass herself or
open the door for another to do it.
/ If this were so she or the other person
would be obliged to pass around the
foot of the bed in order to reach the
glass, and I should be sure to see it.
for did not pretend to sleep. By
the low light enough could be dis
cerned for safe movement about the
room and not enough to make ap-
parent the change which had been
made in the occupant of the bed. L
waited with indescribable anxiety,
and more than once fancied I heard
steps, if not a feverish breathing, close
to my bed head but no one appear.
ed, and the nurse in her big chair did
not stir.
At'last | grew weary, and, fearful
of losing control over my eyelids, I
fixed my gaze upon the glass, as if in
so doing should find a talisman to
keep me awake, when, great God
what was it that I saw! A hand,
creeping hand coming from nowhere
and joined to nothing, closing about
that glass and drawing it slowly away
till it disappeared entirely from before
my eyes!
/ gasped-I could not help it-but
/ did not stir. For now knew was
asleep and dreaming. But NO, l
pinch myself under the clothes and
fluid that | am very wide awake in
deed; and then-look look the
glass is returning; thea woman's
hands slowly setting it back in its |
place, and
With Lound l have that hand in
my grasp. 1t is living hand, and it |
is very warm and strong and fierce,
and the glass has fallen and lies shat
tered between us, and a double cry is
heard, one from behind the partition,
through an opening in which this
hand had been thrust, and one from
the nurse, who has jumped to her
feet aud is even now assisting me in
holding the struggling member, upon
which | have managed to scratch a
tell tale mark with a piece of fallen
glass. At sight of the iron like grip
which this latter lays upon the in
truding member, at once release my
own grasp.
Hold on !" I cried, and, leaping
from the bed, / hastened first to my
patient, whom l carefully reassured,
and then into the hall, where | found
the land-lady running to see what
was the matter. 81 have found the
wretch" cried, and, drawing her
after me, hurried about to the other
side of the partition, where I found a
closet, and in it the woman / had met
on the stairs, but glaring now, like a
tiger in her rage, menance and fear.
That woman was my humble little
patients bitter but unknown enemy.
Enamored of man who-unwisely,
oerhaps-had expressed in her hear I
ng his admiration for the pretty type.
writer, she had conceived the idea
hat he intended to marry the latter,
md vowing vengeance had taken up s
Ter abode in the same house with the |
innocent girl, where, had it not been {
or the fortunate circumstance of my
Meeting her on the stairs, she would
have carried out her scheme c
# vile and secret murder. The 8
POISON she had bought in another city,
md the hole in the partition she had
lerself cut. This had been done at t
irst for the purpose of observation, t
he having detected in passing by t
Hiss Wilcox's open door that r
'anner of painted silk hung over that S
'ortion of the wall in such way as d
D hide any aperture which might be d
nade there. p
Afterward, when Miss Wilcox fell t.
ick, and she discovered by short b
limpses through her loophole that o
he glass of medicine was placed on a Il
able just under this banner, she a
ould not resist the temptation to en- g
arge the hole to size sufficient to b
dmit the pushing aside of the banner, t.
nd the reaching through of her d
lurderous hand. Why she did not
ut poison enough in the glass to kill b
Iiss Wilcox at once I have never n
card. Probably she feared detec- a
on. That by doing as she did she v
rought about the very event she had Il
to avert in the most pleas. 81
1g part of the tale. When the le
entleman of whom have spoken b.
armed of the wicked attempt upon v
Iiss Wilcox's life his heart took pity d
pom her and a marriage ensued
hich | have every reason to believe el
a happy one.-Anna Katharine ol
reen in Lippincott's. b.