"So, Edith, you did not know that you were going mad? _I_ did. I've watched you night and day this long time. I have all along been afraid it would end as it has--on Christmas night. _That_ was the day our father tried to murder our mother. An anniversary, then, we have to-night celebrated. Ha, ha! And you didn't know the skeleton was awaiting admittance to the banquet!"
His eyes gleamed with a light at once of delight and with malice; but he quietly added,--
"But _I_ shall not harm you, you demented thing, you beautiful insanity. There! doctor, didn't I tell you to watch her--to read her--to comprehend the subtle thing? So full of art and duplicity! But look at her now--_now_! She is as mad as the serpent which has poisoned itself with its own fangs--mad--mad! O God! has it come to this? But, I knew it--knew the skeleton was her skeleton--the bones without her beautiful flesh. We've had enough of it now. Take it away, Thompson,--hurry it away!"
"Appear to obey him. Pretend that you take something from the room," said Dr. Graham, in an undertone, to the servant, while St. Victor's eyes were fixed glaring and lurid upon his trembling, agonized, speechless sister.
The skeleton had, in truth, appeared at the Christmas feast.
Laying his hand firmly upon the young man's wrist the doctor said,--
"Mr. Marchand, you're not well, to-night. You are over-fatigued. Shall we go upstairs?"
St. Victor's quickly flashing gaze was met by that clear, resolute, almost fierce response in the physician's eye, before which he hesitated, then shrank. The madman had his master before him.
"You are right. I am not very well; my head aches; I'm worn out with this trouble about Edith, doctor. _Do_ you think it is hopeless? She had better come with us. I don't like to leave her alone with that hideous shape at her back."
Obeying the gentle but firm pull upon his wrist, the brother turned to leave the room, looking back wistfully upon his sister. She was following them with clasped hands, and a face from which all youth and color had fled. St. Victor suddenly paused, gave a scream like the cry of a panther, wrenched himself quickly from the grasp upon his arm, and, in an instant, his teeth were buried in the white shoulder of his sister. But only for an instant, for almost as quickly as the madman's movement had been the doctor's. One terrible blow of his fist sent the maniac to the floor like a clod.