The Woman on the Back Seat.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 156, 2 July 1892, Page 11

The Woman on the Back Seat.

I boarded the train at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and had scarcely got seabed when I noticed a little woman on the last; seat of the right-band side. I could noli 6ee her- face on account of the heavy veil she wore, and she leaned over against the window bo heavily- thab I thought her asleep. There were only a few passongera in the car, and everybody seemed to shrink" into himself as if disgusted. ' :; ■''■•

• Who's the woman back there ?' I asked of the conductor, as he sat down beside the for a few minutes.

•Don't know; going to Sb. Louis,' he said.

'Sick?'

' Maybe, and maybe ibs something on her mind. I've got an idea thab she's watching for somebody.' It was a winter day, and raining ab that. It was dusk, but the lamps had not been lighted, when six or eight people gob on ab a station. Among them was a couple whom I believed to be newly wedded, although they were middle-aged. The man was fine-looking, ■' and the woman really handsome, and they took a seat about the middle of the car with their backs to the veiled woman. When I happened to look back I found her sitting bolt upright and acting as if very much excited. Fifteen minutes after the train bad pulled out of the station the little woman passed me as she went down the aisle. The lamps were alight now, and I saw a pistol clutched in her righb band. The couple referred to were acting very lovingly towards each other, but I had not connected the little woman with th6m at ail. She passed them by two or three.feet, and then wheeled, •raised her veil, and stood with the pistol pointed full in the man's face, No one can be prepared for action under such circumstances. Every one in the car was looking ab the woman, and everybody realised that a tragedy was at hand, but nobody moved. For fully thirty seconds the woman Btood like a statue, the pistol within two feet of the man's' face. Those in front of him said thab he flushed up ab first sight of her, and then grew pale as death. He tried to speak, bub his lips uttered no sound. The woman beside him looked, raised her hands and sank back -in a dead faint.

1 ' George, I have come to say good-bye !' said the little woman at lasb, and her words were followed by the dull click of the hammer falling on a cartridge. There was no explosion. • Her arm slowly fell until ib rested beside her, and wibh a sobbing wail she sank down in the aisle and was helpless. All of U3 moved at once. She was lifted to a seat and a woman took charge of her. We turned to the man for explanation, but he had fallen back and his eyes were closed. Two minutes later we knew that he was dead —as surely dead as if a bullet had pierced his brain. A doctor who came in from the car ahead said ib wa3 a cage of heart failure. He was the husband of the little woman who had been riding so long on the backseat. They had quarrelled, and he had become infabuated with the woman beside him. The wife had planned to encounter them and kill him. Ho had looked into the face of death for thirty seconds, and the strain on his nerves had stopped the flow of life as suddenly as if struck by a thunderbolt. A corpse, an adventuress, a widow ! Ib ended thero for us, bub nob for them. Was it any wonder thab as the train rushed on through the darkness each one of us seemed to hear a voice, saying : lAs ye sow, so shall ye reap ! The deeds of the wicked shall recoil upon their own heads!'—'N.Y. Sun.'