He bent down.
“It is I,” he said. “My poor Bella!”
The shadow of a smile swept over her face.
“Poor Bella, eh?” she gasped, so low that he could just hear her, and no more. “You—you didn’t speak like that last night, Cly! No! But—but why am I lying here—what’s this pain in my side? Ah!” a shudder ran through her; “I—I remember! Cly, he—he shot me! The coward! the coward! He didn’t give me time! If he had——” She tried to raise her arm. “Cly,” and a spasm quivered on her lips, “am I—am I—going to die? Tell me the—truth? You always did that.”
“My poor girl!” dropped from his lips again.
She closed her eyes, and for a second or two remained silent; then she opened them with a lurid light in them. “Cly, listen to me. Take—take down what I—I tell you. The man who shot me—was—was Bartley Bradstone! You know—him?”
He made a faint gesture of assent.
“He—he is a scoundrel; the worst, the meanest; he’s—he’s married an innocent—girl—this morning, and—and—he wanted to put me out of the way.”
She gasped for breath.
A strange change flashed into Faradeane’s face. Was it a sudden hope—a sudden, almost overwhelming relief?