Year: 1872

ously sad over the death of her sister
Women of her stamp always mourn tc
perfection. They neither overdo OF
underdo the thing. as women of feeling
are likely to do.


DIR. Spencer came at once to his wife :
chamber. He thought she looked i'll.
| prescribed cordial ut once, saying that
he would 90 and fetch it,


You are always ordering cordials for
her, said Mrs. Hurd, musingly. "Why
not take something yourself. You look
| like ghost"


He eyed her keenly. but replied com
! posedly:


g think will take some of the cor
dial myself for do not feel quite we'll
Alicia, dear, shall | bring it here and
drink your health 2"


Mrs. Spencer smiled in assent-she
never disputed her husband-and he
went out. Presently he returned with
two glasses. Both contained liquid,
colorless and inodorous. Mrs. Hurd
was watching him with her heart in her
throat, for, as she told me, she felt that
the decisive moment had come. There
was something in the gray pallor in the
doctors rigid face that told her of a
desperate purpose in the mans soul.


He lifted the glass on the right of the
tray and gave it to his wife.


Drink it, dear" he said ait is u
panacea for all evils. also am going
to take a glass of it'll" and he pointed
to glass still on the tray.


Mrs. Spencer accepted it, and was
putting it to her lips, when Mrs. Hurd
interrupted.


I" If you will bring her tumbler of
water, doctor; Mrs. Spencer complains
that tue cordial leaves bad taste in
her mouth, and my bones are so full of
rheumatism that it nearly kills me to
20 down stairs"


The doctor turned and bent on her a
look as if he would read her through.
But she kept her face impassive. If he
had any suspicious, her manner queted
Them, and, putting down the glass, he
left the room. Then Mrs. Hurd changed
the position of the glasses.


When he came back-and he was
gone but a moment-the nurse stood
just exactly where he had lett her, and
Mrs. Spencer was lying back in the chair
with her eyes closed.


Again he lifted the glass-this time
it was the one intended for himself
and placed it to the lips of his wife.
She drank the contents, swallowed a
little of the water he had brought her,
and thanked him in her sad, sweet
way.


Now for my own cordial said he
with affected gayety. 81 indulge my
self in something little stronger" and
as he spoke he tossed Oft the mixture.


"lt made me stone cold to my fingers
ends to see him do it," said Mrs. Hurd,
relating the circumstance to me " but
heaven is my witness, felt not q single
twlnge Of conscience. | argued like
this If it was a simple cordial, as he
had said. it would do him no harm;
if it was poison, his blood would be on
his own head


He went to bed, half an hour after
ward, complaining Of fatigue. In the
morning they found him dead.


was called to the post mortem exam-
nation, and we discovered in the stom-
ach of the deceased sufficient quantity
of the deadliest poison known to modern
science to kill half a dozen men.


My brother physicians agreed that
the man was insane, and had probably
taken the dose in one of his unsettled
fits of mind. did not dispute them,
but even before Mrs. Hurd told her
story | had my own theory in regard to
his death.


There was no public exposure, how
ever. Mrs. Hurd and agreed that it
would profit no one to make the wretch
ed affair public, and SO we kept our own
counsel.


Miss Melrose, in spite of my convc-
in the conspiracy against Mrs. Spencer's
life, could not help pitying. Such a
miserable, worn and haggard face as.
hers | have never seen; and when they
buried DR.. Spencer she was confined to
her chamber with brain fever.


attended her in her illness, but al
though she recovered her health she
never was herself again. She was a
harmless maniac, whose delight was in
gathering flowers and decorating the
doctors grave with them.


She is living STILL and she still gathers
flowers and lays them on that grave,
singing to herself meanwhile a sort OF
low lncantation which no one ever pre-
tends to understand.


Not until Mrs. Spencer had been
many years my wife, and the faithful
Mrs. Hurd slept under the violets, did
Alicia ever know the pertidy Of her
former husband.


And when told her, after the first
shock was over, she crept into my arms
and whispered:


g But if it had not been for James's
crime, | should not have found you,
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