It was then that Constance seemed to recover suddenly her reason, for she rushed toward her husband with outstretched arms, exclaiming in a voice fraught with rapturous thanksgiving, “John! John and Dorothy!” An inexpressible joy shone in her eyes.
But her advance was met with a cold, stern frown and a backward wave of the hand. Not a word escaped him.
For a moment she stood irresolute; then she passed the tips of her fingers across her brow again and again—“Oh, this horrible dream that I cant’ shake off!” Again she seemed to recover her reason and her voice, soft and sobbing, said, “John, you don’t believe me shameless and debased, do you? You can’t believe it, for it is false, false, I say! and the boat won’t clear from it! Let me help”—and her voice hardening, she went on—“Give me a paddle. We must escape. Save Dorothy!” and she threw out her hands to him appealingly.
A swift compassionate look swept across Thorpe’s face. The first doubt of his wife’s guilt had seized upon his brain, and he said chokingly, “My God, is it possible my wife is innocent?”
He had half turned around to her, but on remembering the ring, his face again set stern, then without another word he waved her back with a single motion of his hand.
But the sound of his voice had once more stirred up a filament of intelligence and she sobbed, “John! John!” She got no further. She saw him turn away and, placing her hand to her side, trembled, and with a moan on her lips, sank down beside Virginia.
And at that moment the detective appeared in the partition doorway and was followed closely by Smith, who, upon seeing the prostrate woman, senseless on the floor, at once concluded a foul crime had been committed, and exclaimed, with horror and rage on his face:
“Oh, the murtherin’ blackguard!”
In the struggle Jack broke from Sam and stooped to pick up the revolver. But Sam, coached in Texas, had him covered with his own revolver in a twinkling, and with the characteristic side movement of his head, said with a grin of satisfaction, “If you touch it, I’ll send a bullet through your brain!”