"I will kill you," she repeated, with flaming eyes, "if you come near me!"
He laughed, but the angry blood surged into his brain. He went nearer; he seized the white hand that held the knife. The beautiful face, the white, bare neck were close to him.
"I hate you!" she hissed.
Only God, who sees all things, knows what followed. Her words, may have angered him to murder heat; his passion of love and sense of wrong may have maddened him—only God knows.
There was a struggle for one half minute, followed by a low, gasping cry:
"Oh, Heaven! I am not fit to die!"
It may have been that in the struggle the point of the knife was turned accidentally against her; but the next moment she fell to the ground, with the blade buried deep in her white breast.
The crimson life-blood flowed—it stained his hands, still grasping her—it stained the torn wedding-dress, the bridal veil—it soon formed a pool on the carpeted floor. He stood over her for a minute, stunned, horrified.
"Dora!" he said, in a low, hoarse voice. "Oh, Heaven! I did not mean to kill her."'
She opened her eyes, and her white lips framed one word, half sigh, half moan—"Earle!"—and then the soul of the unhappy girl went out to meet its Judge.