"
"David, your blood was in my veins, and mine is in yours.
"If I didn't think so! The Lord deliver us from temptation! We don't
know ourselves nor those we love."
"He had driven me mad."
"Mad, indeed. What! had you the heart to see the man bleed to
death--the man you had loved--you, my little gentle Eve?"
"Oh no, no; no blood!" said Eve, with a shudder. "Laudanum!"
"Good God!"
"Oh, I see your thought. No, I was not like the men in the newspapers,
that kill the poor woman with a sure hand, and then give themselves a
scratch. It was to be one spoonful for him, but two for me. I can't
dwell on it" (and she hid her face in her hands); "it is too terrible
to remember how far I was misled. Who, think you, saved us both?"
David could not guess.
"A little angel--my good angel, that came home from sea that very
afternoon. When I saw your curly head, and your sweet, sunburned face
come in at the door, guess if I thought of putting death in the pot
after that? Ah! the love of our own flesh and blood, that is the
love--God and good angels can smile on it."
"Yes; but go on," said David, impatiently.
"It is ended, David. They say a woman's heart is a riddle, and perhaps
you will think so when I tell you that when he had brought me down to
this, and hadn't died for it, I turned as cold as ice to him that
minute, once and forever. I looked back at the precipice, and I hated
him. Ay, from that evening he was like the black dog to my eye.
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