what dimples, what a mesh of curly, golden hair in which to entangle a man’s throbbing heart! And yet it was not simply her beauty that inthralled him, and he knew it. She had that psychical charm we call personal magnetism, that is like the perfume to the flower and seems to endow it with a soul. He heard her continue, almost defiantly, as if annoyed: “I wish they would not talk about it, for it makes me angry. Why should I kill myself? I’m young and gay, and, in a way, happy! And yet,” musingly, “I suppose, after all, that the terrible taint of that mania is in my blood. I am not superstitious, but perhaps it may conquer me after all, who knows? Do you suppose I shall ever kill myself?” “I hope not. You would break a dozen hearts if you did, mine among the rest,” Otho replied, banteringly, with a killing glance. She continued, meditatively: “They will go on expecting me to commit suicide, of course, and always selecting the old farm as the scene of the fifth tragedy. Why should I not choose some other scene for the final act? This river, say,” pointing to it as it rippled below the bank, dark and deep and dangerous in its beauty. Laughing, she rose to her feet, and he said: “It seems that fate always demands the sacrifice within the gates of the grim old place.” “Do you think so? Well, I shall defy the fate to which I was born, and break the charm of Suicide Place. If, following the taint in my blood, I must indeed kill[23] myself, I shall disappoint everybody in the location. It shall not be at the old farm, but—here!” [23] Then all at once the startling tragedy happened. Floy stepped to the edge of the bank with a strange, mocking laugh on her red lips, and, as if the terrible mania had seized on her suddenly, red-handed and implacable as fate itself, she threw up her arms above her beautiful head, and leaped into the river that divided hungrily to receive the girlish form, then closed again greedily over its prey. CHAPTER V. THE REASON WHY. THE REASON WHY. Pretty Floy’s startling, unexpected, and terrible action produced the effect of a thunder-clap on the gay and
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