CHAPTER X.

A SECOND MURDER.

She gazed upon me with surprise. Obeying a sudden impulse, I said--"Excuse me, Miss, but I promised to meet _him_ here. You know," with a polite bow and smile, "you know whom I mean?"

"Mr. Barton--" she hesitated.

"Exactly so; Mr. Barton, my intimate friend, who has confided _all_ to me, and who desired me to meet him here at this hour."

"My mother is not at home," hesitated the young girl, "and, in her absence, I do not like to--"

"Receive strangers, you were about to add? Well, Miss, I am not a stranger. As the intimate friend of Mr. Barton, who especially desired me to meet him here--"

These words seemed to resolve all her doubts. She motioned me to enter, and we passed into a small room, neatly furnished, with the light which came through the curtained windows, shining upon a picture,--the portrait of Walter Howard, my husband.

"Capital likeness of Barton," I said, carelessly tapping my switch against my boot.

"Yes,--yes," she replied as she took a seat at the opposite end of the sofa,--"but not so handsome."

In the course of two hours, in which with a maddened pulse and heaving breast, I waited for the appearance of my husband, I learned from the young girl the following facts:--She was a poor girl, and her mother, with whom she lived, a widow in very moderate circumstances. Her name was Ada Bulmer. Mr. Lawrence Barton (this, of course, was the assumed name of my husband,) was a wealthy gentleman of a noble heart,--he had saved her life in a railroad accident, some months before. He had been unhappy, however, in marriage; was now divorced from a wicked and unfaithful woman; and,--here was the climax,--"and next week we are to be married, and mother, Lawrence, and myself will proceed to Europe directly after our marriage."

This was Ada's story, which I heard with emotions that can scarcely be imagined. Every word planted a hell in my heart. At length, toward nightfall, a knock was heard, and Ada hastened to the door. Presently I heard my husband's step in the entry, and then his voice,--

"Dearest,----" there was the sound of a kiss,--"I have got rid of that infamous woman, who killed her first husband, and have turned all my property into ready money. On Monday we start for Europe."

He entered, and as he entered I glided behind the door. Thus his back was toward me, while his face was toward Ada, and his arms about her waist.

"On Monday, dearest, we will be married, and then----"

I was white with rage, but calm as death. Drawing the poniard, (which I had never parted with since I first procured it,) I advanced and struck him, once, twice, thrice, in the back. He never beheld me, but fell upon Ada's breast, bathed in blood. She uttered a shriek, but laying my hand upon her shoulder, I said, sternly,--

"Not a word! this villain seduced _my only sister_, as he would have seduced you!"

I tore him from her arms, and laid him on the sofa; he was speechless; the blood flowed from his mouth and nostrils, but by his glance, I saw that he knew me. Ada, white as a shroud, tottered toward him.

"Seducer of my sister, have we met at last?" I said aloud,--and then bending my face to his, and my bosom close to his breast, I whispered,--

"The _wicked woman_ who killed her first husband, gives you this,"--and in my rage buried the poniard in his heart.

Ada fell fainting to the floor, and I hurried from the house. It was a dark night, enlivened only by the rays of the stars, but I gained the wood, washed the blood from my hands, and resumed my female attire. In less than an hour, I reached the depot at Kensington, entered the cars, and before twelve, crossed the threshold of my own home in New York.

How I passed the night,--with what emotions of agony, remorse, jealousy,--matters not. And for three days afterward, as I awaited for the developments, I was many times near raving madness. The account of my husband's death filled the papers; and it was supposed that he had been killed by some unknown man, in revenge, for the seduction of a sister. My wild demeanor was attributed to natural grief at his untimely end.

On the fourth day I had his body brought on from Philadelphia; and on the fifth, celebrated his funeral, following his corpse to the family vault, draped in widow's weeds, and blinded with tears of grief, or of--despair. Ada Bulmer I never saw again, but believe she died within a year of consumption or a broken heart.