So saying, she reached quickly and grasped the knife he had found years before, a desperate looking instrument with a six-inch blade and bone handle. She raised it high, and for the first time he was fully awakened. He attempted to struggle upward, but with a strength borne of excitement, she pushed him and he felled backward upon the bed.

"_Orlean, my child, Orlean! My God--oh, my heaven, what do you--_" he got no further. Quickly her poised arm descended, and the knife she held sank deeply into his heart.

"_Oh, God--my beloved God--ah--oh--Christ! Christo...._" he struggled upward while she stood over him with that same white expression upon her face. As the blood clogged in the cut the knife had made, and all the pulsations concentrated, struggled before ceasing their functions for all time, he turned his dying eyes toward her. Regarded her blindly for a moment, and then, dropped limply back from where he had risen, dead.

In that moment she regained her sanity.

She regarded him a moment wildly, and then she closed her eyes to try to shut out the awful thing she had done and screamed long and wildly--just as she had done that night when she returned from Mrs. Merley's. Then, as the echo died away, the door was pushed open, and before her stood Ethel. One terrible look and the mad girl went quickly forward, halted, swayed, and then with a moan, raised the knife and sank it into her own breast. Drawing it forth she regarded Ethel wildly, and then, throwing the knife against the wall of the room, dropped dead at Ethel's feet, just as Glavis' steps were heard in the hall below.

When he heard his wife scream, and had rushed upstairs, saw the dead father-in-law and her sister, he cried:

"Jean Baptiste did this! I just met him coming out of the house as I entered," and catching his wife he quickly took her back to the room, and proceeded to spread the alarm.

Even with the grief she was cast into, Ethel had quickly seen a chance to spite the man she hated, and instead of telling the truth, she had chosen to keep silent and let Jean Baptiste be convicted if possible for the crime he knew nothing of.

The people were filing out of the court room. Ethel's confession, born out of the excitement when the lawyer had mentioned investigating the crime deeply, had cleared everything, and Jean Baptiste was free.

In the court room during the hearing he had observed Agnes, but when the trial was over, she was nowhere to be seen. He looked around, but failed to find any trace of her. At last, with a sigh, he went with the lawyers and a few days later was home, to harvest the wheat she had told him was the best, and so he found it.

He was saved thereby, and went into the harvest with Bill and George again shocking as they had done years before. But there was no Agnes to bring the luncheon now, and Jean Baptiste lived in the memory of what had once been.

CHAPTER XIX

WHEN THE TRUTH BECAME KNOWN

"I have hardly seen you for two days, my dear," he complained when Agnes had returned from the hearing.

"I have been consumed with some very delicate business," she said, and notwithstanding the excitement she was laboring under, allowed him to caress her. At the same time he was regarding her strangely. For the first time he seemed to be aware of the fact that she was a rather strange person. He was trying to understand her eyes as everybody else had done, even herself.

"Will Agnes tell me what has kept her so busy and away, I know not where?" he asked tenderly. "Or would she rather not--now."

"She'd _rather_ not--now," and she tried to be jolly, although she knew she must have failed miserably.

"Very well, my dear. But, sweet one, when are you going to become my own?"

She started. In the excitement she had so recently been through, the fact that she was engaged and expected to marry soon, had gone entirely out of her mind.

"Why, really--when?" She paused in her confusion, and he said quickly:

"Let's just get married--today!"

"Oh, no, please don't ask me to so soon."

He frowned. Then he was pleasant again. "Then, when, Agnes?"

She was still confused, and in that moment thought of the legacy. She was more confused. He caught her hand then, and touched her cheek with his lips.

After an hour she had told him of the legacy.

"That place is less than a hundred miles from Chicago and we can just run down there today and back this evening!" he exclaimed, shifting in anxious excitement. "We can go there and back today, and be married tomorrow."

"No," she said slowly. "I'll suggest that we have the legacy brought here, and attended to according to the will and all that has for a lifetime to me been a mystery, be cleared here in your and your aunt's presence. And the day after--I will marry you." She dropped her eyes then in peculiar solemnity. He didn't understand her but the thrill of what was to come overwhelmed him, and in the next instant he held her in his arms.

They explained their plans to his aunt, who, because she disliked notoriety, readily agreed, and by special messenger the papers were brought to the city the following day and opened according to her mother's will.

The night before, as they were returning from the theatre, he said to her:

"Agnes, do you know--and I trust you will pardon me if it seems singular, but there is something about you I can never--somehow feel I never _will_, understand." He paused then and she could see he was embarrassed.

"It is in your eyes. I see them in this hour and they are blue, but in the next they are brown. Has any one ever observed the fact before?" he ended.

She nodded, affirmatively.

"Why is it, dear?"

"I don't know."

"And you--you have noticed it yourself?"

"Yes."

"And--can't you understand it, either?"

She acknowledged the fact with her eyes.

"It is strange. I'll be glad when we understand this legacy."

"I will, too."

"It makes me feel that something's going to happen. Perhaps we--you are going to prove to be an heiress."

She laughed cheerfully.

"And then you will not want to marry me, maybe."

She laughed again.

"But nothing would keep me from loving you always, Agnes," he said with deep feeling.

"Even if the papers would show me to be descended from some horrible pirate or worse."

"Nothing in the world could make a difference. Indeed, should the papers connect you with something out of the ordinary, I think I would like you better--that is, it would add even more mystery to your already mysterious self."

"Wonderful!"