“True,” said Ouida, dreamily, “our lives have utterly failed, and if we quietly sought oblivion, the world would wag its tongue for one brief hour, then would speedily forget that we ever lived.”
Horatio rose to his feet, and said with impressive solemnity:
“I have thought that when two, through their love, pure in itself, had gained but grief and tears, when they had reached that point when starvation, both of body and soul, confronted them like a hideous spectre; when their pride had been stung by pity; when love views love with more than mortal agony, affording no hope; Oh, Ouida, beloved, I have thought ’twere best to end it all with one bold stroke, and solve the mystery of the fate beyond the stars!”
“Your magnetic eloquence,” said the woman, “moves me beyond expression. We cannot longer live together. Your agony each day kills me a million times. Mine utterly unnerves you. Whatever course you deem best I’ll share without a sob or tear.”
“Then, since you are content, let us die together!”
“No vulgar death of violence,” said her lover. “I could not stab you with a knife, for the sight of your red, spurting blood, would rob me of the strength to do the deed upon myself. To blow your brains out with a pistol would be brutish. But see, here is a poison. This, in a small quantity of water, will provide enough to send our souls hence into the other world. Shall I prepare the drink?”
“Yes, and without delay. The morning sun shall shed its earliest rays upon our soulless dust.”
And Horatio Nugent, upon whose eloquence once hung breathless, countless thousands, mixed the drink, with firm hand, that would self-murder two human lives. When ready, said he:
“The fatal distillation is ready for the taking. Farewell, my queen! Would to God I had never crossed your life and dragged you to the dust!”
He held ready the glass almost to his lips.
“And you, my king, farewell! Let me drink first. I would not look upon your rigid limbs, environed in the grip of death.”
“Have your wish,” he said, “here is the cup.”
She raised the small vessel to her lips, and was about to quaff its fatal contents, when Edward Salmon, the lawyer, broke into the room, and quickly seizing the horror of the situation, struck the cup from her hand, and it fell with a crash upon the floor.