She was dead!
Ernest knelt beside her, and with his eyes flashing from their sunken sockets, he clasped his hands and uttered a prayer for the dead.
There were footsteps in the passage and presently into the death-room came Mary Berman and Nameless, their faces stamped with the same look in which hope and terror mingled. Nameless bore the last letter of Frank in his hand; it had hurried him and Mary from the corpse of the artist to the home of Frank, and they arrived only in time to behold her dead.
"She died to save my life!" said Nameless solemnly, as he surveyed that face which looked so beautiful in death. That there were strong emotions tugging at his heart,—emotions such as are not felt twice in a lifetime,—need not be told.
And Mary, with tears upon her pure and beautiful face, stole silently to the side of the dead woman, and smoothed her dark hair, and put her kiss upon her clammy forehead, and closed those eyes which had looked their last upon this world.
The prayer was said, and Ernest, resting his hands upon the arm of the chair in which the dead woman sat, hid once more his face from the light, and surrendered himself to the full sway of his agony.
A voice broke the dead stillness, and a livid face was uplifted from the floor.
"It's an infernal dream, Frank. You could not have been so foolish! The estate is ours,—ours,—"
He saw at the same glance the face of Nameless and the face of his dead child.