The Widowed Bride — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE WIDO WED BRIDE, 163 a drawer in her ebony wood escritoire and took out a small dagger, with red, rusty stains upon its tarnished blade, and a handle of antique yellow ivory curiously carved in imita-— fe of a turning serpent, with eyes of emerald, while the body of the serpent was covered with fine hieroglyphic chas ings in black, save where the influence of time had worn them away into comparative smoothness. ‘“What are those stains?” Rena asked, as she looked shud- deringly at the deadly instrument. ‘Blood!’ Miss Clive answered in a whisper; ‘‘the blood of Arthur Hunsworth!’ ‘low do you know?” cried Rena, recoiling as if the gore were still fresh and warm upon the blade. - “How do I know that there is a heaven above us—a place -of departed spirits beyond? I know it, and that is enough. Moreover, I will tell you more,” and again she lowered her voice to a whisper. <‘I found this dagger, days after they had laid him in his bloody grave—found it, deep down in the tangled roots and fern, where I had sear ched before with no result. But I was never discouraged. I knew that if I persevered he would give me some sign, some token from the silence of the grave. Every inch of that ground was gone over again and again by those whose business it was to probe the mystery to the bottom. Why was it left for me to find this thing by which the deed was done, when all hope was given over? I tell you the hand of fate was in it!” | She pressed the blade to her lips ere she laid it back in the drawer. _ “You wonder to see me do that,” she said, reading the unconcealable expression of Rena’s face. “But you would not 1f you knew all it has been to me. It spoke to me out of the gloom of mystery—it will yet point out to me the clear path to vengeance! No one knows of its exist- ence save you and me!” “But,” asked Rena, ‘‘why do you not consult others?” “T have consulted others—I consulted them when Arthur Hunsworth’s dead body lay in this house, and twelve gen- tlemen of the land in council assembled as a coroner's jury, proved to me the utter folly and impotence of hu- man skill and reason. Do you suppose I will trust my chances to them again? Never! I don’t know why I have showed it to you—perhaps because the necessity of some yoice or look of sympathy was strong in my soul. I have Eomicbooks (ee =p) mn