The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863, page 49 by Various Authors
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pt quiet, though every nerve in my body tingled with rage, and my boiling blood rushed into my eyes till I could hardly see. 'Do you know,' I shouted, 'do you know that I love her--would die a thousand deaths for her?'
He clasped his hands with a quick motion, as he said in a low voice, 'And so do I; and so would I.'
'Beast, fiend!' I screamed, 'does she--does she----' I could not get out the accursed words.
'We have been engaged,' he answered, divining what I would have asked, 'we have been engaged for some time, and----'
He did not finish the sentence, for I sprang at him, crushed him to the floor, squeezed his throat till his face grew black and the froth oozed out from his lips, beat his head upon the hearthstones till he lay still and bleeding, and then sought my knife. It was up stairs. I flew to get it. It lay upon my dressing table before the glass, and I snatched at it. Great God! as I did so, another arm was thrust forth--not mine, I swear, if I live a thousand years; and as I recoiled, I saw in that glass a fiend step back. Not me, not me!--but a fiend with bloody hands, and a foul leer upon its face, and a fierce, cruel laugh in its glittering eyes. It was he, it was he! It was the devil that had possessed me before, come back again. And as I shuddered and gasped, and turned away, and then looked again into those eyes that pierced me through, and saw the cold, bitter smile that was on the face before me, I knew that the fiend would leave me never more, and that I was mad!
What was a quarrel with my brother now? I stole back, and, lifting him up, carried him to his room, where I washed the blood from his face. When he came to himself I fell at his feet and besought his pardon, and that he would keep what had happened a secret. He forgave me. And I believe the only lie he ever told in all his life was when he told Lucy that he had cut his head by falling on a jagged stone.
Oh, how often after that my fingers itched to be at his throat again; but I alway