“I will go. Good-evening, Mrs. Chester; good-evening, Alice. I leave you in the care of Heaven,” said Sinclair, wishing, by all means, to avoid the disgrace of a struggle.
“Go! what, go quietly like an honored guest dismissed? No, d—— you, you came surreptitiously, and you shall depart involuntarily. No, d—— you, I will put you out!” vociferated the maniac, in an ungovernable fury, springing upon Sinclair.
A violent struggle ensued. Sinclair acted entirely upon the defensive, saying, continually, as he could make himself heard:
“Colonel Chester, let me go! I will leave quietly; I would have done so at first.”
And now the deathly grip and struggle went on in silence, interrupted only by the short, curt, hissing exclamations of the enraged man through his now whitened lip and clenched teeth. Sinclair was half the age and double the weight and strength of his opponent, and could easily have mastered him, but did not want the odium of doing it.
While wrestling desperately on the defensive, he expostulated once more:
“Colonel Chester—not for my sake, but for your own—for your family’s, for honor’s sake, let me depart in peace!”
“Ah, villain!” exclaimed the madman, finding his strength failing, and suddenly drawing a pistol, he pointed it at Sinclair’s temple and fired. Sinclair suddenly started, and the bullet went through the window, shattering the glass. Chester now raised the spent pistol and aimed with it a violent blow upon Sinclair’s head. Sinclair quickly caught his descending hand, when——
A power more awful than the judge’s baton, the monarch’s scepter, or the priest’s elevated crucifix arrested the combat.
Death stood in their presence! A cry of mortal anguish from Alice caused both to turn and look—both to drop their hold—and stand like conscience-stricken culprits!