“Yes, I killed him; for I loved you, and that night I went mad!”
*****
“Don't go away from me, Harry,” she said, with hard, panting breaths;
“don't let me die by myself.... I will soon be dead now; come closer to
me, I will tell you all.”
He knelt beside her and listened. She told him all in a few words. As
Baldwin lay in his drunken sleep, she and Maturei had pierced him to the
heart with one of the long, slender, steel needles used by the natives
in mat-making. There was no blood to be seen in the morning, Maturei was
too cunning for that.
Brice staggered to his feet and tried to curse her. The last grey pallor
had deepened on her lips, and they moved and murmured, “It was because I
loved you, Harry.”
*****
The sun was over the tops of the cocoanuts when the gate opened, and the
white-haired old priest came in and laid his hand gently on Brice who
sat with bowed figure and hidden face.
“How is your wife now, my good friend?” he asked.
Slowly the trader raised his face, and his voice sounded like a sob.
“Dead; thank God!”
With softened tread the old man passed through to the inner room,
and taking the cold hands of Brice's wife tenderly within his own, he
clasped them together and placed the emblem of Christ upon the quiet
bosom.