“I don’t know what is the matter with me,” he muttered, passing his hand over his forehead. “I have taken nothing that could hurt me. I suppose it’s a reaction. That was a painful meeting with—with my wife. May Heaven forgive her all her wickedness toward me, though—though——Strange, this weakness seems to increase, and my thoughts are wandering.”
The faintness grew worse, so did the burning in his mouth and throat. The unhappy man rose, and endeavored to drink some water, but the effort to swallow was too painful.
“May Heaven forgive me all my sins!” he murmured. “I believe I am dying. Dying!” he wildly repeated, raising himself suddenly, and looking about distractedly, then glancing down at his hand. “Dying! She has destroyed me. Oh, Lucia—Lucia—Lucia!”
Burning tears forced their way as he sank back. By degrees he floated into a kind of sleep, and then he forgot everything.
And as he lay dead in the silence of that lonely room, the woman who had so remorselessly slain him was hastening back to the great city, there to still further shape out the path that was to conduct her——
Whither—whither?
To the almost regal chambers of her princely lover, or to the condemned cell of the manslayer?
CHAPTER XXVII.
FRANK AMBERLEY’S MISSION.
The next morning Mr. Amberley went to his office as usual.