IN this lost condition of tearless despair I remained for three days, contemplating with as much indifference of disgust as if they had been worms, the servants and doctors that occasionally crept about my darkened chamber before me. I drank as much water in this time as would have drowned me, but broke no bread—absolutely none.

That night, still lying on my bed, I heard a sort of bustling of feet, and a suppressed whispering going on in the staircase with which my room communicated, and a sudden suspicion rushed into my mind, which as suddenly made me rise from my bed. I slipped on my dressing-gown, and opening the door, perceived the end of the pall, which two or three men, treading on their stocking soles, were carrying into the next apartment. I followed them, and startled by my appearance the whole array of women-servants who were there busied in their preparations. I ordered them all to leave the room instantly. The men set down their burden, and obeyed, all but one, who stopped for a moment to turn to the women and say that he was the person who was to fasten the screws, and that they would call him up again when he was wanted. He then laid down his hammers and chisels, and followed the others, still stalking upon the points of his toes, as if the dead were to hear, or the living notice his tread. I said to the females when he had disappeared, “Leave me, all of you, and tell those men too that they have nothing more to do here at present.—Leave me.”

I suppose I spoke in such a manner as to frighten the poor creatures. They all stole away immediately without saying a word—they scarcely even dared to glance at me as they passed me, for I was standing close by the door.

I was alone with my dead—and who the slayer?

“Murdered innocents! no hand but mine shall touch your remains;”—such was my thought as I approached the bed on which they were both lying—the infant beside its mother. I lifted the cloth from Joanne's face.