The family had been gone for months, and so no pity
mingled with the excitement. Not till the following day did the
awful nature of the event break in its full horror upon the town.
Among the ruins, in a closet which the flames had spared, they
found hunched up in one corner, the body of a man, in whose seared
throat a wound appeared which had not been made by lightning or
fire. Spencer! Spencer himself, returned they knew not how, to die
of this self-inflicted wound, in the dark corner of his grand but
neglected dwelling.
And this was what made the horror of the place till the tragedy of
the opposite hollow added crime to crime, and the spot became
outlawed to all sensitive citizens. Folly and madness and the
vengeance of high heaven upon unhallowed walls, spoke to her from
that towering mass, bathed though it was just now in liquid light
under the impartial moon.
But as she continued to survey it, the clouds came trooping up
once more, and the vision was wiped out and with it all memories
save those of a nearer trouble--a more pressing necessity.
Withdrawing from the window, she crept again to Reuther's room and
peered carefully in. Innocence was asleep at last. Not a movement
disturbed the closed lids on the wax-like cheek. Even the breath
came so softly that it hardly lifted the youthful breast. Repose
the most perfect and in the form of all others the sweetest to a
tender mother, lay before her and touched her already yearning
heart to tears.
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