"You have died for me!" the stricken wife repeated, and then,
overcome with horror, she knelt down beside the dead man, and with
her arms about him, and her head upon his breast, she relapsed into
unconsciousness almost as deep as death.
Ross Powell stood still a moment, like one frozen with horror. That
maddened cry from the lips of the woman he would have slain rang
fearfully in his ears, he realized in a moment to what fearful lengths
he had been driven by his own jealous passion and the specious
temptations of Mrs. Merivale. He had slain his hated rival, but he had
brought down retribution on his own head, for Laurel's wild shriek of
despair had echoed loudly back to the hotel, and already a score of
people were rushing to the scene. Startled, terrified, the murderer
made a wild rush forward, still clutching in his hand the bloody
dagger, but before he had run a dozen paces he was brought to a stop
by the sudden apparition of a white-faced woman who flung herself
wildly before him, hissing out, in tones of blended wrath and horror, a
terrible malediction upon his head:
"Murderer! you have slain _him_! How dared you, how dared you? May
Heaven's curses light upon your head! May you swing from the hangman's
rope! May perdition seize your soul!"
She must have been mad, for she flung herself before him, she barred
his way, she clung to him with her desperate white arms, heedless of
his curses and remonstrances, terribly intent on delivering him up
to justice, and so punishing him for the mad mistake he had made in
slaying the husband and sparing the wife!
She must have been mad, or she would have known that he would not
tamely submit to detention with the feet of the avengers gaining
swiftly on his track, and his soul writhing in horror of the hangman's
ghastly rope. He tried to thrust her from him, to tear away from the
arms that held him in desperate bondage; he shouted hoarsely for her to
let him go.
"Devil in woman's shape, it was you that tempted me!" he cried out,
with a fierce, blood-curling oath. "Now let me go, or I swear I will
kill you as I did him!"
She must have been mad, for she did not heed the threat--she only clung
the tighter in spite of his frantic struggles to release himself from
the arms that twined around him venomously, like living serpents in the
deadly embrace of hate.
"I will never let you go--never!" she hissed out, madly, and in his
frantic fear, hearing the steps of his pursuers coming nearer and
nearer on his trail, he lifted the cruel dagger, still reeking with Le
Roy's life-blood, and plunged it fiercely in her breast as it gleamed
bare and white in the beautiful moonlight.
"Ah!" she gasped, and the white arms relaxed their hold, her body
wavered and fell limply forward. He thrust it desperately from him, and
sprung forward--free!
Free! but at what terrible cost to his soul. The woman whose low, soft
whisperings had tempted him to murder, the woman who in her madness
would fain have delivered him up to the law's vengeance, lay dead upon
the shore, the cold, white moonlight shining down into her ghastly,
staring eyes and pallid face. Retribution had overtaken her, and the
fate she had plotted for another recoiled upon her own head. The
serpent she had loosed to destroy another struck its deadly fangs into
her own heart.
They lifted her up tenderly and pitifully, and bore her back to the
hotel. They spoke of her with the gentlest pity and regret as the
victim of a cruel murder, for no one ever knew the truth--no one
guessed that she was to blame for the tragedy that had ended her life
in so disastrous a fashion. The shadow of her sin never rested on
her grave, for there was no one to betray her--Ross Powell was never
apprehended. His deadly fear lent wings to his feet, and he escaped
from his pursuers and made good his flight to a far-off land. He never
returned to his native shore, he was never brought to justice. All his
punishment came to him through his own coward conscience. The cruel
whip-lash of remorse followed him through the world. The double murder
he had committed lay like a mountain's weight upon his soul. He had
been bad and wicked, but of his own self he would never have committed
murder. He had been goaded into its commission by a temporary madness,
and in time he repented most sincerely of his sin, and died in the
humble hope of forgiveness by a merciful Redeemer.