All three turned and hastened back to Eva’s room, where they found Mrs. Pennington half lying across the bed, her body convulsed with sobs. The colonel was the first to reach her, followed by Custer and Shannon. The bedclothes lay half thrown back, where Mrs. Pennington had turned them. The white sheet was stained with blood, and in Eva’s hand was clutched a revolver that Custer had given her the previous Christmas.
“My little girl, my little girl!” cried the weeping mother. “Why did you do it?”
The colonel knelt and put his arms about his wife. He could not speak. Custer Pennington stood like a man turned to stone. The shock seemed to have bereft him of the power to understand what had happened. Finally he turned dumbly toward Shannon. The tears were running down her cheeks. Gently she touched his sleeve.
“My poor boy!” she said.
The words broke the spell that had held him. He walked to the opposite side of the bed and bent close to the still, white face of the sister he had worshiped.
“Dear little sister, how could you, when we love you so?” he said.
Gently the colonel drew his wife away, and, kneeling, placed his ear close above Eva’s heart. There were no outward indications of life, but presently he lifted his head, an expression of hope relieving that of grim despair which had settled upon his countenance at the first realization of the tragedy.
“She is not dead,” he said. “Get Baldwin! Get him at once!” He was addressing Custer. “Then telephone Carruthers, in Los Angeles, to get down here as soon as God will let him.”
Custer hurried from the room to carry out his father’s instructions.
It was later, while they were waiting for the arrival of the doctor, that the colonel told Custer of Eva’s experience with Crumb the previous night.