"As I sat and waited, I cannot tell you the horror and dread which took possession of me. I knew that the moon was still shining--that patches of silvery light were falling upon the sea, and the shrubs and flowers outside, but to me all was black as midnight, and I actually groped my way to my bed, on which I threw myself at last, shivering with cold, for the October air was blowing up chill from the water. For a few moments I slept, and then started suddenly as I fancied I heard Charlie call my name.
"Oh-h, Betty," was what he said, and in his voice there was a note of agony and fear, which made me shiver in every limb, as I tottered to the window and looked out.
"Oh, what a glorious night it was, rich and sweet with tropical bloom and beauty, and the full moon in the sky now moving down to the west, for it was past two o'clock.
"Every thing was still, and after listening a moment I went back to bed, and slept heavily until morning, when my brother came to my door and spoke to me in a voice I did not at first recognize, it was so strange and unnatural.
"What is it?' I asked, as I opened the door and looked at his white face.
"'Sister,' he said, stepping into the room. 'Can you bear some dreadful news?'
"'Yes,' I answered with a sensation as if I were turning into stone. 'Charlie is dead! He has killed himself!'
"How I knew it I cannot tell, but know it I did. Charlie was dead. He had lost everything and gone from the scene of his ruin to the very spot where he had kissed and said good-by to me, and there had put a bullet through his brain--close by the clump of lilies which were wet with his blood when they found him lying on his back with his fair young face upturned to the moonlit sky, and a smile on his lips as if the death struggle had been a painless one.
"I knew then that at the last, when his soul was parting from his body, he had called my name, and I had heard him just as I often hear him now when I am all alone, and the night, like that one, is full of moonlight and beauty.
"We took him to England and laid him in his grave, where I buried my heart, my life, and hope, and since then I have grown into the strange, unlovable woman you find me. But do you wonder that I shrink with horror from the gaming-table and those who frequent it, or that I could not respect your mother when I heard of her so often at Monte Carlo, where Charlie died and where your grandfather ruined himself for he, too, was possessed with a mania for play?"