“It was just thus I fancied my poor father died! But, oh, Violet, I feel myself accessory to his death! If I had only listened to my parents’ advice, if I had not been an ungrateful, disobedient daughter, this sorrow had never come upon me. Oh, Heaven, to think of my dead father, my widowed mother, my own wrecked life, and all for one man’s sin! Oh, I wish I could lift up my voice in clarion tones and warn every young girl in the land to beware of fascinating strangers and silly flirtations!”
With a bursting sob of keen remorse and agony, her head again sank on her breast.
Silence reigned a little while, and through the broken pane of the garret window the moonlight streamed on the two unhappy girls crouching together with aching hearts.
CHAPTER XXXV.
“A YOUNG GIRL’S HONOR IS DEARER THAN HER LIFE.”
Violet sobbed violently for some moments, then murmured, tremblingly:
“Can you listen to the rest, Lena, so that we may be done with this tragic subject?”
She was eager to unburden her mind of its bitter secret so long hidden in her tortured breast.
“Yes, tell me all,” sighed the hapless girl, and Violet resumed:
“When I saw your poor father fall, weltering in his blood at the murderer’s feet, I was so horrified that I could not utter the shriek that rose to my lips. My tongue seemed paralyzed, my limbs relaxed, and I dropped half-fainting into a chair.
“I saw the murderer start across the room and turn the key in the lock; then he looked back, and the sight of me seemed to blast his eyes. I heard him murmur, with an oath, that he had forgotten me, that he would have to kill me to silence my tongue.