As Alice Montgomery was returning to the house from the peach walk,
where she had met her brother according to his appointment, she caught a
glimpse of her husband hastily entering the wood. He was walking fast,
and before she had decided to call to him he had entered the wood and
was lost to her sight.
“He is searching for me,” she murmured, pleased at his apparent
precipitancy, and yet a little anxious as to how she was to explain her
failure to meet him. As she followed him into the wood her steps grew
slower as she found herself unable to frame to her entire satisfaction
an excuse for her very glaring omission.
“He must have gone to the Lake Summer-House, thinking to find me there,”
she presently surmised, as she came to two cross forest paths. Saying
this she entered the road opposite to that which her husband had taken.
When she reached the Summer-House and found it empty, a look of alarm
for the first time crossed her face.
“Oh, I hope he has not met Tom,” she whispered to herself half in
dismay. At that instant a shot rang through the wood, startling her
almost into a cry. “I wonder what that can be,” she exclaimed, “George
has no fire-arms; but perhaps it is some one shooting at the squirrels.”
After a moment’s hesitation she retraced her steps towards the direction
of the report, and passed into the foot-path taken by her husband some
ten minutes previously.
This brought her to the turnpike road, which was deserted, but for an
object lying on the ground some fifty yards away, and not clearly
discernible at that distance in the fading light.
A strange tremor filled her breast and almost palsied her limbs as she
moved towards the inanimate object lying so still and awful; and now as
she neared it, fast taking the semblance of a human body.
There are moments whose experience no pen can describe, and far be it
from us to attempt the impossible. What of agony and horror Alice
Montgomery suffered when she saw her brother lying dead on the public
highway, while his parting kiss was yet warm on her lips, to be
understood must be endured. Her first impulse was to give way to her
uncontrollable grief; but at that instant her straining eyes caught
sight of an object which froze the first cry on her lips. This was the
new wedding-ring which shone cold and distinct against the dark coat
worn by the dead man. As it lay there it seemed to voice the full intent
with which the murderer had placed it on his victim’s breast.
As if carved in pale cold marble the young bride stood there staring at
the dead body, and at the awful ring shrieking out its horrid tale. So
silent and still she stood that the birds fluttered near to her on the
road, and the squirrels stopped midway in their flight, and sat upright
in the dusty way to regard her.
Then, like a statue endowed with vitality, she stooped and removed the
ring from its place, murmuring in a low monotone, “The ring he bought
for me to-day.” Then she looked at it strangely and almost coldly, and
finally placed it in her pocket-book. Only a little shiver and a gasp
disturbed the calm--that was all.
With a desperate effort and with a self-possession bordering on the
horrible, she removed the revolver, of which the handle was discernible,
from the dead man’s pocket, and peered into each separate chamber. Alas!
they were all full. For an instant the long white fingers grasped the
weapon and then a cartridge driven from its place fell into her palm.
This she also placed in her pocket-book. Then she stooped and picked up
the empty shell which the murderer had cast from his revolver after
firing. Would it fit her brother’s weapon? It did; the pistols were of
the same (Smith & Wesson) make and also of similar calibre.
Her next task was a still more terrible one, but it was performed
without a tremor of the quick and capable fingers. With gentle yet
unfaltering touch she took the match-box from her brother’s vest pocket,
and, having abstracted a single match from it, she returned it to its
place. Then, moving into the shadow of the wood, lest the flame should
attract attention, she applied the lighted match to the empty chamber,
smoking and discoloring it as if the pistol had been recently fired.
This done, she laid the revolver close to the outstretched hand of the
dead man.
“God forgive me,” she said in a low tone, “for making my brother a
suicide, but it is to save my husband’s life.”
This was said with the same unnatural calm, and then the speaker knelt
beside the dead man and kissed him on the lips which were still
unchilled by death. Once, twice, three times, her lips, colder than
those of the dead, sought his face, then she took out her handkerchief
to wipe the blood which was penetrating the poor, unseeing, wide-open
eyes. Then, remembering the part which she had to play, she refrained.
“God help me, my deceit has killed my brother; I must try to save my
husband.” Murmuring this she turned from the dreadful spectacle on the
road and passed into the wood with a strange mechanical woodenness of
step, as if the shock which had spared her brain and hands had benumbed
or paralyzed her lower limbs.
As she neared the house her grandfather rose from his seat on the
piazza, and advanced to meet her.
“What is the matter, child?” he cried, alarmed beyond measure at the
ghastly face on which the seal of a great horror had been stamped, and
alarmed no less at the unnatural calm of his grand-daughter’s manner,
as she stood before him with staring eyes, whose dilated pupils
suggested insanity.
“Grandpapa, go down to the road,” she murmured pantingly, and with a
strange catch in her voice, “down by the white elm tree; something
terrible has happened to Tom.” And, her gruesome work being ended, poor
over-spent nature gave way, and she fell unconscious to the ground.
When she had been restored to sensibility and carried to her room, her
grandfather, calling the colored butler to follow him, went to
investigate the cause of her emotion. The gardener, who was found
watering the plants in the front, was also summoned to accompany his
master.
What the three found the reader already knows. The old white-haired
grandfather uttered no sound, and only the exclamations of the horrified
servants broke the weird silence.
“A lamp and a stretcher, Julius, quick!” exclaimed the old man,
silencing with a wave of his hand the lamentations of the others. Then
he stooped and put his ear to the chest of the silent figure; long and
patiently he listened, and then, as if reluctant to believe the worst,
or still uncertain, he undid the coat and vest and re-applied his ear
to catch the faintest flicker of life, if it be that any such were left
in the prostrate body.
“Your ear is younger than mine, try whether you can hear any action in
his heart.” This was said to the butler, who bent his head in silent
obedience to the commands of his master.
“Seems to me that I can hear _something_, sah!”
The minutes appeared hours while the two waited in the gathering gloom
for the return of Julius with the lamp and the stretcher. At last,
however, he arrived, and the inanimate body was carried gently to the
house. Five minutes later a mounted groom left for the nearest doctor.
When the latter had made his examination he announced that life was not
extinct, and that while it hung by a thread, there was still room for
hope. The bullet had fractured the skull and caused concussion of the
brain, but the latter organ had not been penetrated, the missile having
glanced from the bone in consequence of the slanting position of the
forehead at the moment of fire.
“I think it right to tell you,” the doctor said at parting, “that while
the patient’s life may possibly be saved, his reason will probably be
endangered. Do you think the young man intended to commit suicide?” he
added by way of inquiry, as his last remark was received in silence.
“I think not,” was the reply; “he was full of life, and was constantly
getting into trouble, but nothing weighed heavily on his mind; no, I
imagine that he took out his revolver to fire at some over-bold
squirrel, perhaps, and while examining the chambers to see whether they
were all loaded he probably touched the hair-trigger unintentionally; I
think that is, perhaps, the correct solution of the mystery.”
“I have no doubt that it is,” said the doctor, as he turned to go.
“Good-night, sir.”