Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/34

 thing that attacked me. I gave him poison which I had had for years and which was said to leave no trace. I had intended to take it myself if the worst came to the worst; I had never dreamed of giving it to him. But I did. It was all done in a minute, and then—my God!" she broke out suddenly. "Can you realize what my life has been since? Can you imagine the horrors of my nights here, filled with thoughts of him mouldering in his grave, and put there by me? When I have fancied my reason leaving me I have almost hoped it would go. But I am sane yet, that I may realize what and where I am, and suffer as I had never dreamed a human creature could suffer and live. Can't you say something? Or have I gone mad at last, and am I sitting here gibbering to the walls? Is it so common a thing for you to have murderesses—?"

"Does your mother know?" asked the reporter, quietly. They were the first words she had spoken, and she realized fully their possible effect.

The other woman's form relaxed. She fell on her knees, with her head buried in the