“You are insane, poor girl! you are insane!” said Thurston, pityingly.

“Would Heaven I were! would Heaven I were! but I am not!  I am not!  Too well I remember I have bound my soul by an oath to seek out Marian’s destroyer, and deliver him up to death!  And I must do it!  I must do it! though my heart break—­as it will break in the act!”

“And you believe me to be guilty of this awful crime!”

“There stands the fearful evidence!  Would Heaven it did not exist! oh! would Heaven it did not!”

“Listen to me, dear Miriam,” he said, calmly, for he had now recovered his self-possession.  “Listen to me—­I am perfectly guiltless of the crime you impute to me.  How is it possible that I could be otherwise than guiltless.  Hear me explain the circumstances that have come to your knowledge,” and he attempted to take her hand to lead her to a seat.  But with a slight scream, she snatched her hand away, saying wildly: 

“Touch me not!  Your touch thrills me to sickness! to faintness! curdles—­turns back the current of blood in my veins!”

“You think this hand a blood-stained one?”

“The evidence! the evidence!”

“I can explain that evidence.  Miriam, my child, sit down—­at any distance from me you please—­only let it be near enough for you to hear.  Did I believe you quite sane, Miriam, grief and anger might possibly seal my lips upon this subject—­but believing you partially deranged—­from illness and other causes—­I will defend myself to you.  Sit down and hear me.”

Miriam dropped into the nearest chair.

Mr. Willcoxen took another, and commenced: 

“You have received some truth, Miriam.  How it has been presented to you, I will not ask now.  I may presently.  I was married, as you have somehow ascertained, to Marian Mayfield, just before going to Europe.  I corresponded with her from Glasgow.  I did appoint a meeting with her on the beach, upon the fatal evening in question—­for what purpose that meeting was appointed, it is bootless to tell you, since the meeting never took place—­for some hours before I should have set out to keep my appointment, my grandfather was stricken with apoplexy.  I did not wish to leave his bedside until the arrival of the doctor.  But when the evening wore on, and the storm approached, I grew uneasy upon Marian’s account, and sent Melchisedek in the gig to fetch her from the beach to this house—­never to leave it.  Miriam, the boy reached the sands only to find her dying.  Terrified half out of his senses, he hurried back and told me this story.  I forgot my dying relative—­forgot everything, but that my wife lay wounded and exposed on the beach.  I sprung upon horseback, and galloped with all possible haste to the spot.  By the time I had got there the storm had reached its height, and the beach was completely covered with the boiling waves.  My Marian had been carried away.  I spent the wretched night in wandering up and down the bluff above the beach, and calling on her name.  In the morning I returned home to find my grandfather dead, and the family and physicians wondering at my strange absence at such a time.  That, Miriam, is the story.”