“Oh, Jim, he’s killing me!” she wailed.
For MacNutt had taken up the revolver in his trembling left hand and was forcing the head with all its wealth of tumbled hair closer and closer up before the transmitter.
It had been too late! She closed her eyes, and in one vivid, kaleidoscopic picture all her discordant and huddled life stood out before her.
She felt a momentary shiver speed through the body that pinned her so close to it, as she waited, and it seemed to her that the gripping knees relaxed a little. He was speaking now, but brokenly and mumblingly.
“Listen, you welcher, while I—”
She felt the little steel barrel waver and then muzzle down through her hair until it pressed on her skull. At the touch of it she straightened her limp body, galvanically, desperately. He staggered back under the sudden weight.
Then she caught his hand in hers, and with all her strength twisted the menacing barrel upward. The finger trembling on the trigger suddenly compressed as she did so. The bullet plowed into the ceiling and brought down a shower of loosened plaster.
Then he fell, prone on his face, and she stood swaying drunkenly back and forth, watching him through the drifting smoke. Twice he tried to raise himself on his hands, and twice he fell back moaning, flat on his face.
“It’s a lie, Jim, it’s a lie!” she exulted insanely, turning and springing to the transmitter, and catching up the still swaying receiver. “Do you hear me, Jim? It’s a lie—I’m here, waiting for you! Jim, can’t you hear?”
But Durkin had fainted away at the other end of the wire, and no response came to her cries.