A Dreadful Temptation; or, A Young Wife's Ambition

by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

With an irrepressible shudder at touching the dead, the girl drew out the pins and took the wet shawl.

Then, as she started on her homeward way, Howard Templeton, who had stood still like one in a dream of horror, started forward and told her that he himself would send a vehicle for the ladies, that they might come if they wished to identify the body.

For himself, he had no idea whether or not that the poor, bruised and battered corpse could be Lora Carroll.

He could see nothing that reminded him of her except the beautiful, black hair lying about her head in heavy, clinging masses, sodden with water and tangled with seaweed.

He longed, yet dreaded, for Mrs. Carroll and her daughter to arrive and confirm or dissipate his fears and end the dreadful suspense.

And yet, with the rumble of the departing wheels of the conveyance he had sent for them, a sudden cowardice stole over the young man's heart.

He could not bear the thought of the anguish of which he might soon be the witness.

Obeying a sudden, inexplicable impulse, he turned from the little company of watchers by the dead and walked off from them, taking the course along the shore that led away from the little village.

Oftentimes those simple little impulses that seem to us mere accidental happenings, would appear in reality to be the actual fulfillment of some divine design.