She flung herself upon me so suddenly that she tore me away from the door. She was a strong and athletic woman, and I suppose she expected some resistance, for she used such force as to drag me forward into the middle of the room, overturning a chair in the effort. I was so utterly taken by surprise that I yielded to her violence more completely than she expected.
She staggered, let go her hold, and fell heavily backwards, tripping over the fallen chair. I made a desperate attempt to save her, but only caught the end of a fur necklet, and it tore like a spider’s web.
Her body crashed against a Venetian fender, and her head came with awful force against a sort of support for the fire-irons that stood up a foot from the ground.
Then she rolled over, her eyes and face undergoing a ghastly change, and instantly became, as I thought, unconscious.
I knelt beside her, raising her head with my right hand, and brokenly besought her to speak to me, when I would at once do anything she demanded. But she gave no sign of animation. In a frenzy of despair, I forced myself to examine her injuries, and my heart nearly stopped beating when I discovered that a large piece of iron had been driven into her brain through the back of her head.
I knew in a moment that she was dead. Although I have not had much experience of that terrible epoch in the human being, I have seen far too much of death in animal life not to know that she who had been my honored and respected wife now lay before me a mere soulless entity—a symbol only of the splendid vital creature who, a minute earlier, was angrily protesting against the supposed faithlessness of her mate.
Looking back now upon the events of that fateful night, I marvel at the appalling coolness which came to my aid as soon as I realized the extent of the misfortune which had befallen both Alice and myself. I can fully understand what is meant by the callousness of a certain class of criminals, or the indifference to inevitable death betrayed by Eastern races. No sooner was I quite assured that my wife was dead—dead beyond hope or doubt—than I regained the use of my reasoning faculties in the most marvellously cold-blooded degree.
The actual difficulties of my position were enormous. I arraigned myself before the judge and jury, and saw clearly that every circumstance which contributed to Alice’s suspicions in the first instance were now magnified a hundred-fold by the manner and scene of her death.
Before me, in ghostly panorama, moved the dread crowd of witnesses against me, the degradation of my family, the bitter and vengeful feelings of my wife’s relatives, the suffering of poor, unconscious Mrs. Hillmer, the whole avalanche of horror and misery which this unfortunate accident had precipitated upon every person who claimed my relationship or friendship.