“Your defeat? what do you mean, dear Madge?”
“Oh, Town., I have been such a wicked woman—I have plotted deeply and darkly against you and Clara. I won your affections from her, and yet I was a married woman—the lawful wife of—”
The name was lost in a moan of pain, and Town. felt a repulsive flush mount to his face.
He would have shrunk away from her as from an adder, had he not remembered that she was dying—dying so young, so beautiful, so wicked, so false-hearted.
There was a momentary silence which was broken by the dying woman’s voice:
“Town.,” she said, “although I have been your worst enemy, I want to ask one request of you.”
“Name it,” said Town., “and it shall be granted.”
“Then after I am dead, I want you to convey my body and the body of Dick Sherwood to the cabin of Talbott Taft.”
“It shall be done, I promise you,” said Town.; “but, what is Dick Sherwood to you, Madge?”
“Town., I am dying fast. I have but few minutes to live. I would tell you all about my life and the deep, dark game of sin and treachery in which I have been engaged, could I live long enough. But when you convey my lifeless body and that of Dick Sherwood to the cabin of the Indian trader, he will tell you—tell you all. Oh, if I only knew that Clara escaped.”