CHAPTER XXXVI.

The drive from the residence of Andrew Pryor to the Tombs was a long one, and almost an hour had elapsed from the time of his leaving there until Lynde Pyne arrived at the big, gloomy prison.

He went at once to the official there, and told of the summons that had been sent him.

Then it was that he heard the story of what had happened.

Miss Chandler had stuck a knife through her throat!

Where she had procured it, no one was able to say, but certain it was that the deed had been done, and that she had been removed to the prison hospital.

With set face and anxious heart, Lynde made his way to that quarter that he had visited more than once in his practice, a visit that had always been attended with horror, but now a thousand times more than ever.

He was shown to the cot whereon the once famous beauty rested, her drawn face now whiter than the drapery of her cot.

The eyes were closed, the sheet pulled up so that none of the disfiguring bandages about the shapely throat could be seen.

"Is she sleeping?" he asked of the physician who stood beside him.

"One can never tell. She lies like that all the time, and will answer no questions that are put to her."

"Will she--live?"

"Oh, yes! There is no reason why she should not! At first I was very positive it would be a fatal case, but we succeeded in stanching the blood sooner than I hoped for. She has lost a great deal however, and could not have stood much more. We have to watch her all the time, however, for fear she will attempt it again, and another opening of the artery would certainly prove fatal."

"Have I your permission to speak to her if she will answer me?"

"Certainly, only you must be careful that she does not exert herself in the very least. Keep her in exactly the position that she now is, and if the slightest thing should happen, I will be within call. If she should take it into her head to talk to you, do not allow her to utter more than a few words at a time and those very softly; you understand?"

"I think so."

"I shall be only out of earshot."

He walked away as he finished speaking, and Lynde took the chair beside Evelyn's bed. Her eyes opened almost at once.

"He said that I should not die," she said slowly, and with great difficulty of articulation, "but he lied! I will die. When a woman is determined upon a thing like that, there are not men enough in the world to prevent it."

"You must not say that, dear," exclaimed Lynde, gently. "He only wants to save your life for your own good. I think I have succeeded in securing bail for you, and you must get well now in order that we can determine what is best to do for you."

"From whom did you get it?" she stammered, faintly.

"From--your sister, whose deepest sympathy you have."

"Leonie?"

The word was a gasp, the expression of the countenance set with horror.

"Yes," he answered.

"Never!" she cried, as vehemently as the circumstances would allow. "Do you think I would owe my liberty to her? Not if I died like a dog, as I shall! You have all forsaken me and lied to me. You who pretended that you would protect me above every one upon earth. Do you think I did not know that you were not trying to get bail for me? You thought that you could deceive me until you succeeded in having me sentenced to the penitentiary, and then you would do as you liked. You would leave me and marry her. Well, I decided that I would not go there. I knew that there was but one way to save myself from it, and I took that means. That old fool told you just now that I should get well. I tell you that I shall not, and you and my dear sister"--with a disfiguring sneer--"may look upon yourselves as my murderers! Why did she not come here with you? I want to tell her before I die the price that she has paid for her husband."

"Evelyn, for God's sake think what you are saying! You know that Leonie is not guilty of your horrible charge!"

"She is guilty of that and more. But for her I should have been at home and happy now, but she thought that I was the fortunate one, and she thrust herself upon me, determining that she would rob me of everything that made life a joy. She has succeeded. Go and bring her here! I want her to see the result of it all! I want to see her glory in her own work here before my eyes before I die! I want her to see what a thing she has made of her sister, and I want her to know that my blood rests upon her head."

"If you do not cease this, I shall call the physician and leave you!" Lynde exclaimed almost angrily.

"Will you bring her here?"

"No! I most emphatically will not!"

"Then I shall ask the doctor."

"It would be useless, for I should decline to allow her to come!"

He was unprepared for what followed his speech.

Before he could catch her, or in any way stay the mad act, she had leaped from her cot upon the opposite side from him, and had torn the bandages from her throat, then catching her finger in the stitches that held the long wound together, she ripped them open.

Only insanity could have given her the courage to have accomplished an act so deliberate in its atrocity.

Pyne uttered a gasp of horror and sat still as though paralyzed. The doctor, from the other side of the room, saw the act.

Like a flash he sprung up and rushed desperately after her; but she eluded him, a laugh like the fiendish yell of an infuriated animal sounding upon the stillness of the room. It seemed to arouse Lynde.

He leaped to his feet, and together they succeeded in catching her and forcing her down upon the cot, where she was bound; but it required their united strength to do it, and then only when the floor and bed-clothing were saturated with blood.

"She is a raving maniac!" the doctor ejaculated, pausing to wipe the perspiration from his brow.

Bound as she was, the hideous laughter continued to fall from her rapidly paling lips.

"Quick!" he exclaimed to Lynde. "Go for assistance. Tell some one to bring my surgical instruments. There is not a moment to lose!"

But the moment had already passed.

The horrible laughter grew fainter and fainter, and at last ceased altogether.

The struggling grew weaker, and she lay very quietly when they leaned over her again.

She had fainted, but it was a swoon from which she never recovered.

They sat there beside her, doing what mortal men could do to restore her, but to no purpose.

The end came without a return to consciousness something like half an hour later.

"It is much better that it should have been so," the physician said consolingly. "She very likely would never have recovered her mental faculties, and even had she, the horror of an awakening would have been worse than death. She was too frail of constitution ever to have endured the tortures of prison life."

"But to die like that without a prayer for mercy!" murmured Lynde, shudderingly.

"It would never have been different. If you grieve, my dear boy, you are very foolish. The kindest act God ever performed for her was in allowing her to die."

"Can it be kept from the papers?" asked Lynde, after a long pause.

"I am afraid not. Her last words you alone heard, consequently they rest with you, but the manner of her death must of course be reported, and the papers will naturally want the conclusion of so startling a story. I suspected that it would be something like this, for I believed the act to be that of a lunatic in the beginning. My belief is that she has been insane for years, though that, and the manner of her obtaining the knife with which the deed was done, must forever remain a mystery."

"It is more charitable to believe it so."

"God help her, it is her one chance in eternity. I hope that it may have been so."

Deep in his heart Lynde uttered a solemn "Amen!"

If he could not profoundly regret an occurrence that had rid his life of a contemplation that was more hideous than death, he was not to blame, for he had tried to do his duty nobly, though only he himself could have told what a frightful prospect it contained.

Very gently he told the story to Leonie, concealing in his own heart that which he knew would cause her the greatest sorrow.

He told her that her sister had died violently insane, because he believed there would be a germ of comfort in the knowledge.

She was deeply affected, not because there had ever been, or could ever have been any affection between them, but because there were no words of forgiveness, and because she blamed herself to a great extent for the untimely end and the grewsome circumstances that led to it.

"There is one thing more," she said sadly, when the subject had been talked over for some time. "Mr. and Mrs. Chandler should be told. In spite of all, I feel that the death will strike them very closely home, and either you or I must tell them, Lynde. Don't you think so?"

"Perhaps you are right. They knew of my relations with her, and Mr. Chandler is not kindly disposed toward me. It might be better for you, though I will not ask it if you had rather not."

"I will go. It should be done now, don't you think?"

"Yes. If left until to-morrow, the papers will do it for us. God bless you, Leonie."

She hurried from the room quickly, that he might not see the tears that had gathered in her eyes.

She was not altogether unhappy.

She knew so well how much that death meant to her, but she tried to put that thought from her.

It was her sister who was dead--her sister whom, if she had not loved her, was yet her mother's child.

Then, for the first time, the horrible remembrance came to her.

In the place where the mother had died, the daughter who had despised her memory followed.

She sat down half paralyzed under the fearful thought that, after all, it was the "retribution" of which the old Mosaic law has spoken.