The little clock on the mantel ticked on and on. One, two, three, four, five minutes passed, and she stood thus like a statue carved in marble. Another five minutes, and with a shudder she hastily crossed the room and emptied the contents of the little white paper into the depths of the silver cuspidor.
“Among the cigar ashes contained in this, it will never be traced,” she whispered, fearfully.
She was not an adept in crime. This was her first offense against the laws of God and man. It was little wonder that she trembled so violently as she crept up to the couch and watched breathlessly the effect of the emission of the powder.
“In an hour from now, when the doctor returns, his patient will be beyond all mortal aid,” she muttered, hoarsely.
Twice the sufferer stirred on his pillow and moaned faintly as he murmured piteously:
“Oh, for youth, and health, and strength, that you might love me, my beauteous young bride. They say that December should not wed with May—that it is against nature’s laws—but I have tried to convince myself that the rule did not always hold good; that my case was an exception; that Queenie loved me for my old and battered self, not for my gold.”
The bride who stands beside the couch recoils from him with a gesture of loathing.
Love that pitiable wreck of manhood, who is seventy if he is a day. How dare he expect it? What madness to imagine it.
“Kiss me, Queenie,” he moaned. “Lay your soft cheek against mine, that the swift current of youth’s warm blood may chase the death dew that is gathering on my brow. For your sake I will overcome the deadly faintness that is stealing over me. I will live—live—live!”
“To make my days one ceaseless round of annoyance—ay, torture,” muttered the girl, bending over him, noting that though he is fighting the fiercest battle man ever fought to overcome the grim destroyer, death, which is hovering over him, his convulsive throes grow weaker and weaker, and his face takes slowly on that yellowish hue that there is no mistaking.