Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-09-21

OLuSF. hltlSQ ulLu III tue 0lu uOuSS and by the method her ancestors had taught her. And I, risen on my elbow, listened, with the sweat oozing from my forehead, but not believing her, oh, not believing her, any more than any one of you would believe such words uttered in dream by the darling of your heart. But when, with long drawn sigh, she murmured, 'Murdererr and raised her fists-tiny fists, hands which I had kissed thousand times -and shook them in the air, an awful terror seized me, and sought to grasp them and hold them down. but was hindered by some nameless inner recoil under which I could not speak or dream horror she was laboring under, nightmare of unimaginable acts and thoughts, but it was one to hold me back; and when she lay quiet again and her face resumed it's old sweetness in the moonlight, I found myself star ing at her almost as if it were true what she had said-that word-that awful word which no woman could use with regard to herself, even in dreams, unless something, an echo from the discordant chord in our two weeks married life, rose like the con- firmation of a doubt in my shocked and rebellious breast.
 From that hour till dawn nothing in that slowly brightening room seemed real, not her face lying buried in It's youthful locks upon the pillow, not the objects well known and we'll prized by iola Al a1% self-most of all, not myself unless the icy dew oozing from the roots of my lifted hair was real, unless that shape, fearsome, vague, but persistent, which lowered in the shadows above us, drawing a line of eternal separation between me and my wife, was thing which could be caught and strangled and Oh. rave! chatter like a madman, but I did not rave that night Nor did rave when, in the bright, broad sunlight her eyes slowly unclos- ed and she started to see me bending 50 near her, but not with my usual kiss or glad good morning. I could not question her then; dared not The smile which slowly rose to her lips was too piteous-it showed confidence IL Wd1lGu &lIA1 dIlCE UESdAldSJ. 1uGily while she was seated where she could not see my face, whispered the ques- ton, Do you know that you have had a horrible dream? She shrieked and turned. saw her face and knew that what she had uttered in her sleep was true.
 T have no remembrance of what I said to her. She tried to tell me how she had been tempted and how she had not realized her own act till the mo- ment bent down to kiss her lips as her husband. But I did not stop to listen-I could not flew immediately to Miss Futile with the violent demand as to whether she knew that her sister was already wife when she married me, and when she cried out, sNoy and showed great dismay I broke forth with the dreadful tale and covered in unmanly anguish at her feet and went mad and lost myself for a little while. Then went back to my wretched wife and asked her how the awful deed had abeen done. She told me, and again I did not believe her and began to look upon it all as some wild dream of the distempered fancies of disordered brain. This thought calmed me, and spoke gently to her and even tried to take her hand. But she herself was raving now and chung about my knees murmuring words of such anguish and contrition that my worst fears return ed and only stopping to take the key of the Moore house from my bureau, I left the house and wandered madly- know not where.
 $ T did not go back that day. could not face her again till knew how much of her confession was fancy and
 how much was fact. roamed the streets, carrying that key from one end of the city to the other, and at night I used it to open the house wlllcl. s..e
 had declared contained so dreadful a secret.
 'I had bought candles on my way there but, forgetting to take them from the store, had no light with which to penetrate the horrible place that even the moon refused to illumine. realized 1 this when once in, but would not go back. All I have told about using matches to light me to the southwest chamber is true, also my coming upon the old candelabrum there, with candle l in one of it's sockets. This candle I
 lit, my sole reason for seeking this room being my desire to examine the antique sketch for the words which she
 had said could be found there.
 T had failed to bring magnifying ] glass with me, but my eyes are phenomenally sharp. Knowing where ] to look, I.was able to pick out enough l words here and there in the lines com posing the hair to feel quite sure that
 my wife had neither deceived me nor 1 been deceived as to certain directions 1 being embodled there in writing. Shak- en in my last lingering hope, but not yet quite convinced that these words ] pointed to outrageous crime, I flew I next. to the closet and drew out the
 fatal drawer.
 "You have been there and know what the place is, but no one but myself can ever realize what it was for me, still
 loving, still clinging to a wild incense n11nnf hnlipf in my wife f04 0r0nQ in