“Do not be foolish, Elsie,” he said.
“It is not folly,” she answered in a determined voice. “Long have I borne with you; borne with your neglect, your insults; but now I have made up my mind. Either you marry me, or we both shall die.”
“Think for a moment—”
“I will think no more; I have nearly gone mad with thinking; now I shall act. Tom Henderson, will you marry me?”
“Oh, well, if you put it in that way I suppose I must.”
Elsie’s raised hand, with which she had been pointing the revolver at Henderson’s throat, fell at these words, and a sigh of relief escaped her lips.
“Let it be so then,” she said, in a strange, weary tone. The strain had been so great; the struggle was over. Her arm dropped; her head fell on her breast. But in a moment—in this moment of weakness—the coward before her sprang upon her, grasping her arm, and wrenched the revolver from her grasp.
He did it so quickly that Elsie had not time to resist, nor to realize his action. He held the revolver in the air; he gave a brutal laugh of triumph.
“Now,” he cried, “will you shoot me now? So you were going to force me to marry you, were you, by your silly threats? But I won’t, there; do you hear, I won’t!”
He almost shouted the last words, and they fell on the ears of a woman stunned with misery.