My fingers involuntarily closed tighter around the ring, which, all this time, I had kept shut up in my hand. Not for the world would I have had him to see it then. I was more afraid of him than I had been of Miriam during all our journey. She might be called an Avenging Angel. He was a destroying Fiend.
He trembled violently. He laid his hand heavily upon my arm. It was as cold as ice, and made a chilly horror creep over me.
'Tell me, Hester,' he said, in a hoarse voice, 'what is the meaning of this? You and Miriam have been farther than the front door, or your clothes would not be in this cut and ragged condition. Why do you look at me so strangely--so horribly? Speak to me! Speak!'
I longed to show him the ring, and confront him then with his horrid crimes, but he looked so fiercely I dared not. It is well that I did not. I know not what might have been the result. Justice might have been cheated of her proper prey, and I not have been here to write this tale. I made my escape from the room, and left him with his dead victim.
I have a confused recollection of being surrounded with pale and eager faces, and of telling them my wonderful story, and showing them the ring. And then I remember nothing more for many hours, for I fell into a heavy sleep.
That night, so full of horrors, did not turn my hair white, or make me ill, or cause me to lose my reason. I was subject to a nervous irritability for some time afterward, but that passed away, and the only feeling I have left to remind me of that terrible night is my aversion to sit up with a dead body. I have never done it since.
The route that Miriam and I had followed was carefully traced. Our tracks were not discernible until the graveyard was nearly reached. There they found the print of our shoes in the wet gravel; and in the loose soil around the newly dug grave. On Annie was found a note from Ackermann appointing a meeting with her on that evening when she had so mysteriously disappeared.
Ackermann was arrested and brought to trial. When he learned the nature of the evidence against him it seemed to fill him with a superstitious horror, which drew from him a full confession of his guilt, although, at first, he protested his innocence. He gave in his confession, and met his ignominious death with the same bold front and reckless daring he had manifested during all his life.