CHAPTER V.

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.”