“Stand aside, Captain Dunlap!” said the Chief sternly. Quickly stepping to Burton’s side and placing his hand on his shoulder he said,
“Walter Burton, I arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth, on the charge of murder.”
With a movement too quick even for a glance to catch, the Chief jerked Burton’s hands together and snapped a pair of handcuffs on the wrists of the rapidly collapsing man.
The eyes of all present were fixed, in stupified amazement, on O’Brien and Burton, and had not seen what stood in the open doorway until a low moan caused Jack to turn his head. He saw then the figure of Lucy slowly sinking to the floor.
Lucy in her wanderings about the house was passing through the hall when the uniformed officer entered. Attracted by the unusual spectacle of a man in a blue coat ornamented with brass buttons, she had followed the policeman and overheard all that he had said, and seen what he had done.
“I will furnish bail in any amount, O’Brien,” exclaimed Mr. Dunlap, staying the two officers by stepping before them as they almost carried Burton, unable to walk, from the room.
“Please stand aside, Mr. Dunlap,” said the Chief kindly.
“Don’t make it harder than it is now for me to do my duty,” and gently pushing the old gentleman aside, O’Brien and his assistant bore Burton from the library and the Dunlap mansion.
“Help me, quick! Lucy has fainted!” called Jack, who, crippled as he was, could not raise the unconscious wife of Burton.
When Mr. Dunlap reached Jack’s bending figure, Lucy opened her eyes, gazed about wildly for an instant, gasped for breath as if suffocating, and suddenly sprang unassisted to her feet, as if shot upward by some hidden mechanism.