With Miriam, the shock, the anguish, the struggle had well-nigh passed; she was at once subdued and resolved, like one into whom some spirit had entered and bound her own spirit, and acted through her.  So strange did all appear to her, so strange the impassiveness of her own will, of her habits and affections, that should have rebelled and warred against her purpose that she sometimes thought herself not herself, or insane, or the subject of a monomania, or some strange hallucination, a dreamer, a somnambulist, perhaps.  And yet with matchless tact and discretion, she went about her deadly work.  She had prepared her plan of action, and now waited only for a day very near at hand, the fourth of April, the anniversary of Marian’s assassination, to put Thurston to a final test before proceeding further.

The day came at last—­it was cold and wintry for the season.  Toward evening the sky became overcast with leaden clouds, and the chill dampness penetrated into all the rooms of the old mansion.  Poor Fanny was muttering and moaning to herself and her “spirits” over the wood fire in her distant room.

Mr. Willcoxen had not appeared since breakfast time.  Miriam remained in her own chamber; and Paul wandered restlessly from place to place through all the rooms of the house, or threw himself wearily into his chair before the parlor fire.  Inclement as the weather was, he would have gone forth, but that he too remembered the anniversary, and a nameless anxiety connected with Miriam confined him to the house.

In the kitchen, the colored folk gathered around the fire, grumbling at the unseasonable coldness of the weather, and predicting a hail-storm, and telling each other that they never “’sperienced” such weather this time o’ year, ’cept ’twas that spring Old Marse died—­when no wonder, “‘siderin’ how he lived long o’ Sam all his life.”

Only old Jenny went in and out from house to kitchen, Old Jenny had enough to do to carry wood to the various fires.  She had never “seed it so cold for de season nyther, ’cept ’twas de spring Miss Marian went to hebben, and not a bit o’ wonder de yeth was cole arter she war gone—­de dear, lovin’ heart warm angel; ’deed I wondered how it ever come summer again, an’ thought it was right down onsensible in her morning-glories to bloom out jest de same as ever, arter she was gone!  An’ what minds me to speak o’ Miss Marian now, it war jes’ seven years this night, since she ’parted dis life,” said Jenny, as she stood leaning her head upon the mantel-piece, and toasting her toes at the kitchen fire, previous to carrying another armful of wood into the parlor.

Night and the storm descended together—­such a tempest! such a wild outbreaking of the elements! rain and hail, and snow and wind, all warring upon the earth together!  The old house shook, the doors and windows rattled, the timbers cracked, the shingles were torn off and whirled aloft, the trees were swayed and snapped; and as the storm increased in violence and roused to fury, the forest beat before its might, and the waves rose and overflowed the low land.