One glance at the assembled party, and another at the empty frame and the canvas that lay beside it, and she comprehended the situation.
“I know you, Willard Frost,” she said, with a calmness that surprised herself as well as all present.
“I trust you have a good opinion of me,” sneered the baffled scoundrel.
“I have doubted you,” she went on, not heeding the interruption, “for two years, but I never thought you capable of such as this.” She paused and pointed to the canvas upon the floor.
“Under a false pretense you first deceived me; you borrowed all the money I had that you might make me easy prey to your designs,” she continued, her voice gathering fulness, and swelling with indignation.
“Worst of all, with a wickedness that devils might admire and imitate, you sought my husband’s ruin, by tempting him to drink. You succeeded; but that your success fell short of your expectation he and I have this devoted friend to thank,” she turned and laid her hand upon Marrion’s.
“You! always you!” shrieked Frost, “you have baffled me for the last time.”
There was a flash--a loud report--and Marrion Latham, clutching at his breast, sank heavily to the floor. Without waiting to note the full results of his terrible work, Willard Frost rushed out into the night.
“Oh! my God! my God! save him!” burst from Cherokee’s white, groaning lips, as she raised her eyes and cried in fierce despair.
“God save you and your home, is all I ask,” he gasped.
Robert, too, knelt by his side, crying: “How could the foul traitor deal such a merciless blow? Friend, brother, live to see the result of your work. You are my savior,” cried Robert.
“Then death is unutterably sweet,” dropped from Marrion’s lips. He gazed imploringly at Cherokee; his power of utterance was gone; he could give no answering pressure to the fond hands, yet his last words had filtered like a single drop of sweet, through all the sea of woe. While the dear ones bent above, they felt that in that stroke fierce fate had spent her last shaft. There was no drop of worm-wood left in this bitter, bitter cup.
The wounded man was removed to Robert’s home. The attendant physician looked grave; he was dealing with a tremendous enemy that assaulted with sapping and draining of strength, with poisoning of the blood and brain. But he was young and fresh in his wrestle with evil in disease; he had the latest words of science; he knew how to work, so he called up all his powers, and neither slumbered nor slept.