The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863, page 149 by Various Authors
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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.
It only remains to tell how Ackermann was led to murder a woman he loved--for he certainly loved Annie. It seems that Annie, in her light, trifling way, had seriously wounded him by flirting with one of her former suitors. He remonstrated, but his evident distress only urged the giddy girl to further trials of her power. And she had an object in arousing his jealousy, for she too was jealous of Miriam's ring. He persisted in wearing it, notwithstanding her entreaties, and she feared some lingering affection for the giver gave rise to the reluctance to part with the gift. On the night of the murder, high words had passed between them in regard to it.