She left the room, beckoning him to follow. He did so, but as soon as she rose from the table he quietly pocketed the glass from which she had been drinking. He found Rose in the act of opening all the windows in her boudoir. She was unusually flushed, and he noticed that the pupils of her bright blue eyes were greatly contracted. This gave her so strange and wild a look that he started back as she turned toward him.
“How oppressively hot it is to-night, Frederick!” said she, in a muffled voice, and breathing heavily.
“Why, no; it is not warmer than usual. You must have been drinking too much, Rose. Compose yourself. Come here and lie down on the sofa, while I play you some of your favorite melodies.”
Saying this, he sat down at the piano and began to play at random, watching her intently all the time as she flitted about the room. At the end of a few minutes she flung herself down on a lounge and closed her eyes. She breathed more heavily than before, and from time to time passed her hand across her forehead, which was bathed in cold perspiration.
All at once she opened her eyes again. They were now dilated as if by pain.
“Frederick,” she cried, in a low, oppressed kind of tone, “please come here. I am not feeling well. I wish you would give me a glass of water.”
He walked to a side table and brought her a large glass filled to the brim with iced water, which she drank eagerly.
“I am so sleepy,” murmured she, lying down again on the cushions.
Frederick sat down near her on the edge of the lounge, and watched her curiously. Her face had assumed a cadaverous aspect, and now and again she shuddered from head to foot. She appeared to be suffocating, and there was a bluish tint round her drawn mouth and sunken eyes. Frederick did not move. His face was nearly as white as that of his victim. But he made no attempt to help or to assist her. He cruelly, and in cold blood this time, allowed the poison to take definite hold of her system, and his pitiless eyes remained fastened on her distorted face without once relenting.
Gradually her breathing became less and less audible, and a few moments later it had entirely ceased. Placing his hand to her bosom he convinced himself that the beating of the heart had stopped forever.