"It is true," Marion gasped. Oh, the difficulty of getting her tongue to form words! "But I want to save him—now."
"Too late," the matron said; and hers and all the faces—the room seemed full of them—looked at her with loathing, shrinking from her, as she stood before them, spattered with her husband's blood. "The man is dying fast."
At that instant one of the younger nurses who had been ministering to the figure upon the bed, lifted up a warning hand. "He is dead!" she said.
How the faces glared at her! Strange as well as familiar ones—crowds upon crowds of faces. Faces of the nurses who had been her friends, who had loved her; faces from out the past—how came they there with their heart-remembered names!—her mother's face—her mother who was with the angels of God! All the forces of Heaven and earth testifying against her who had done the unspeakable deed.
Was there no one on her side—no one who would shield her from the accusing eyes?
The cry with which she called upon the doctor's name in its frantic expression of utmost need must have had power to annihilate time and space, for while the sound of it still thrilled upon the ear the young doctor was in the room. She turned to him with the joy of one who finds his saviour.
Standing before her, his hands pressed firmly upon her shoulders, he bent his head till the strong, kind face almost touched her own.
"Murderer!" he whispered in her ear, and flung her from him.
She lay where he had thrown her; but someone's hands were still pressed upon her shoulders, a voice was still whispering "Murderer!" in her ear—or was it—was it "Marion" the voice whispered?