"Thought himself her murderer!" said the minister, still repeating the young man's words, like an echo. "How was that?"
Both Christie and Willard fixed their eyes eagerly on the excited face of the young captain.
"Well, it was he who stabbed her that night on the beach. He has confessed it all," said Captain Campbell.
"He stabbed her!" exclaimed Willard, springing to his feet, while Christie uttered a faint cry; "and why, in the name of Heaven, should he try to murder her? What had she ever done to him?"
"Nothing. He did not mean to injure Christie. He mistook her for his wife."
"Mistook me for his wife!" said Christie, like one in a dream. "And did he want to kill his wife?"
"Yes; horrible as it seems, he wanted to kill her!" said Captain Campbell. "The way of it was this," he said, stopping suddenly in his excited walk, "Courtney was jealous of his wife; he fancied she had gone to keep an appointment with some one on the island"—a slight flush of crimson glowed for an instant on his dark cheek as he spoke—"and he determined to follow her there. He went. In the storm and darkness he met Christie. He thought her his wife, and stabbed her, and left her for dead on the ground. Some apparition that he met terrified him, and he fled from the island—first returning to the spot where he had left Christie; but finding the body gone, swept away by the tide, as he imagined. He returned the next evening to the parsonage; there he found his wife living, but hearing the rumor of Christie's death, he knew he had stabbed her in his blind fury. He heard, also, that my sister had gone to the island that night, and that a woman resembling her had been seen flying through the storm about the time the deed was committed, and the diabolical project entered his head of having her accused of the murder, and thus freeing himself forever from all possibility of blame. How well he succeeded, we all know; and Sibyl would have died an ignominious death for his crime, had not a retributive Providence sent Christie here at the eleventh hour to save her, and bring his crime to light; but too late to save her from the shame and humiliation of what has passed. May the foul fiend catch his soul for it!"
"Oh, brother! hush!" said Sibyl, laying her hand on his arm. "Remember you speak of the dead!"
"This is monstrous," said Mr. Brantwell, in a tone of horror. "I never dreamt that any man in his senses could have committed such a crime."
"He was not in his senses," said Sibyl, "he was crazed with jealousy."