Through her the wife had left the husband. Was Death here to separate them still more effectually? Would he ever have come to this but for her? In some way did not this horror lie at her door? In all the years that were to come could she ever atone for the wickedness she had done.
As she sat here she felt as though she were a murderess. And once she had loved this man—passionately loved him. "Fiercest love makes fiercest hate." He had cast off that love with scorn, she had vowed revenge, and verily she had had it! Of fortune, of wife and child, and now of life, it might be, she seemed to have robbed him.
"Oh, forgive me my sin!" her whole stricken soul cried out.
They reached the house, the coachman and the physician lifted the still senseless man and carried him to an upper chamber. Summoning her housekeeper to their aid, Norine left them and went in search of the wounded man's wife.
She found her in her own room lying listlessly, wearily, as usual, upon a sofa, gazing with tired, hopeless eyes at the fire, while her little children played about her. Kneeling before her, her face bowed upon the pillows, her tears falling, her voice broken and choked, Norine told the story she had come to tell. In the room above her husband lay, injured it might be unto death.
"If he dies," Norine said, her voice still husky, her face still hidden. "I shall feel, all my life-long, as though I were his murderess. If he dies, how shall I answer to Heaven and to you for the work I have done?"
Helen Thorndyke had arisen and stood holding by the sofa for support, an awful ghastliness on her face, an awful horror in her eyes. Dying! Laurence dying! and like this!
"Let me go to him!" she said, hoarsely, going blindly forward. "You are not to blame—he wronged you beyond all forgiveness, but I was his wife and I deserted him. The blame is mine—all mine."
She made her way to the room where they had laid him. On the threshold she paused, faint almost unto death. The yellow, wintry sunshine slanted in and filled the chamber. Upon the white bed he lay, rigid and ghastly. They had washed away the clotted blood, and the face was entirely uninjured. Worn, haggard, awfully corpse-like, it lay upon the pillows, the golden, sparkling sunshine streaming across it.
"Laurence! Laurence! Laurence!"