With a smothered cry Cleo sprang into the room—but she was too late. Norton had quickly dropped the pistol to the level of the eye and fired.
A tiny red spot flamed on the white skin of the boy's forehead, the straight figure swayed, and pitched forward face down on the rug.
The woman staggered back, cowering in the shadows.
The father knelt beside the quivering form, clasped his left hand in Tom's, placed the revolver to his temple and fired. The silver-gray head sank slowly against the breast of the boy as a piercing scream from Helen's lips rang through the silent hall.
CHAPTER XXXI
SIN FULL GROWN
The sensitive soul of the girl had seen the tragedy before she rushed into the library. At the first shot she sprang to her feet, her heart in her throat. The report had sounded queerly through the closed doors and she was not sure. She had entered the hall, holding her breath, when the second shot rang out its message of death.
She was not the woman who faints in an emergency. She paused just a moment in the door, saw the ghastly heap on the floor and rushed to the spot.