Glancing toward it, the would-be homicide saw on the pane, written in letters of blood:
"Murderer, beware! The hounds of justice are on your trail, and will strike when you least expect it!"
Slowly the words faded out, yet Andrew Barkswell stood there, riveted to the floor, staring as though petrified into a marble image.
"Heavens!"
With this one exclamation Barkswell sprang forward and gazed out into the night. He thought he saw a form moving away in the gloom. He threw up the sash and called after the form, but no answer came back, and then he dropped the sash, waking his wife.
"Delusion!" he muttered under his breath; and yet he trembled and was very pale.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PLOTTER'S VICTORY.
Rose Alstine did not visit the widow in her prison home for some days after her encounter with the counterfeit August Bordine. In fact, she was quite ill for a time, and kept her room, refusing to see any one, not excepting her cousin Janet.
"What a tormented little fool," declared the old maid. "If a man had used me as this one has Cousin Rose, do you think I'd take on, and make myself miserable over his villainy? No, I wouldn't—"