'My dear Doc,' cried Josephine, with affected cordiality—'how opportunely that you called! I was just now wishing that you would come.'
'Ladies,' said the Doctor, solemnly—'I have recently made a terrible, a most astonishing discovery.'
'Indeed! and pray what is it?' cried both mother and daughter.
'It is that Mr. Edgar Franklin, whose death was so sudden and unaccountable, was basely murdered!'
The mother and daughter turned pale, and losing all power of utterance, gazed at each other with looks of wild alarm.
'Yes,' resumed the Doctor—'I have in my possession evidence the most conclusive, that he met his death by the hands of a murderess, who was urged to commit the deed by two other devils in female shape.'
'Doctor—explain—what mean you?' gasped Josephine, while her mother seemed as if about to go into hysterics.
'In the first place I will ask you if you ever knew a woman named Mary Welch?' said the Doctor; then after a pause, he added—'your looks convince me that you have known such a person; that woman recently died in this city, and on her death-bed she made the following confession.'
The rector here produced and read a paper which he had drawn up embodying the statement and confession which the woman Welch had made to him, just before her death. As the reader is acquainted with the particulars of that confession it is unnecessary for us to repeat them.
Having finished the perusal of this document, the rector proceeded to relate an account of his visit to the tomb of Mr. Franklin, and concluded his fearfully interesting narrative by producing the lump of lead which had been taken from the skull of the murdered man.