He trembled violently. He laid his hand heavily upon my arm. It was as cold as ice, and made a chilly horror creep over me.
'Tell me, Hester,' he said, in a hoarse voice, 'what is the meaning of this? You and Miriam have been farther than the front door, or your clothes would not be in this cut and ragged condition. Why do you look at me so strangely—so horribly? Speak to me! Speak!'
I longed to show him the ring, and confront him then with his horrid crimes, but he looked so fiercely I dared not. It is well that I did not. I know not what might have been the result. Justice might have been cheated of her proper prey, and I not have been here to write this tale. I made my escape from the room, and left him with his dead victim.
I have a confused recollection of being surrounded with pale and eager faces, and of telling them my wonderful story, and showing them the ring. And then I remember nothing more for many hours, for I fell into a heavy sleep.
That night, so full of horrors, did not turn my hair white, or make me ill, or cause me to lose my reason. I was subject to a nervous irritability for some time afterward, but that passed away, and the only feeling I have left to remind me of that terrible night is my aversion to sit up with a dead body. I have never done it since.
The route that Miriam and I had followed was carefully traced. Our tracks were not discernible until the graveyard was nearly reached. There they found the print of our shoes in the wet gravel; and in the loose soil around the newly dug grave. On Annie was found a note from Ackermann appointing a meeting with her on that evening when she had so mysteriously disappeared.
Ackermann was arrested and brought to trial. When he learned the nature of the evidence against him it seemed to fill him with a superstitious horror, which drew from him a full confession of his guilt, although, at first, he protested his innocence. He gave in his confession, and met his ignominious death with the same bold front and reckless daring he had manifested during all his life.
It only remains to tell how Ackermann was led to murder a woman he loved—for he certainly loved Annie. It seems that Annie, in her light, trifling way, had seriously wounded him by flirting with one of her former suitors. He remonstrated, but his evident distress only urged the giddy girl to further trials of her power. And she had an object in arousing his jealousy, for she too was jealous of Miriam's ring. He persisted in wearing it, notwithstanding her entreaties, and she feared some lingering affection for the giver gave rise to the reluctance to part with the gift. On the night of the murder, high words had passed between them in regard to it. In the heat of the discussion, Annie had managed dexterously to slip the ring off his finger. He struggled to regain it. She threw it away. The quarrel now grew more violent, until at last, in his rage, and as unconscious of what he was doing as an intoxicated man, he struck the fatal blow, and Annie fell dead at his feet. In the midst of his horror and remorse—for even he was filled with horror at such a deed—he thought of himself, and provided for his safety by hiding the body among the thorny and poisonous bushes, knowing it would be more unlikely to be found there than if he threw it into the river, or dug a grave for it. Creeping carefully in and out among the thick, thorny bushes, so as to disarrange them as little as possible, he first deposited his dead burden, and then returned to the place of the last fatal struggle, that he might look for the lost ring.
The moon had risen, and he could see every object with great distinctness. He looked carefully along the ground, pushing aside the weeds, and removing every stone under which it might have rolled. After a few minutes' search he became conscious that some one else was looking for the ring! He was angry with himself for entertaining such a delusion; but still, in spite of his efforts to get rid of it, the feeling continued. He had a dim and vague idea that something impalpable was near him, now by his side, now before him, never behind him, looking as eagerly and as anxiously as himself for the lost diamonds. He inwardly cursed his own cowardice, for he thought this apparition was born from his guilty conscience, and he determined to pay no heed to it.
At last he approached a cluster of alder bushes, which he now remembered to have been the place where Annie threw away the ring. He was about to commence a search among these, when suddenly Miriam stood between him and the bushes. He saw her distinctly for a moment, and then she vanished from his gaze. He pursued her in the direction she had taken, but no trace of her could he find. Then, recollecting how very ill she was, he became convinced that he had become subject to an optical illusion. But he had now become fearful and nervous, and dared not return to the spot to renew the search. And thus it was that the ring was left upon the twig of alder to bear witness against him.