"It shall never be!" the maddened lover groaned to himself in jealous fury, for he had said to himself, day after day, that ere Ela should become the bride of another, he would stretch her dead at his feet, and give her sweet white beauty to the worms and the grave rather than to the arms of a rival.
The man was temporarily insane. Love and despair and reckless indulgence in the bottle had made him so. He was as dangerous at this moment as a wild beast from the jungle.
Lovelace Ellsworth rushed into the room, and, without seeing Ela Craye at all, paused directly at the young girl's side, and began to speak.
To the jealous hearts of Olive and Vernon Ashley, the act had but one interpretation.
His choice had fallen on Ela, and he was about to announce it publicly to his friends.
A pang of the bitterest pain and jealousy tore like a red-hot needle through the heart of Olive, and involuntarily, she looked again at the window for the lowering face of Ela's rejected lover, wondering how he would bear the strain of the moment.
The sight of his face made her shudder with alarm, for it had grown dark and demoniac in its fury; and while she gazed, she saw his hand lifted, and the shining point of a pistol directed full at the head of Lovelace Ellsworth.
Simultaneously with the first words of Lovelace, a loud, warning shriek burst from Olive's lips; but both were silenced together by the loud report of the pistol whose contents had entered the victim's head.
With a moan of pain, Ellsworth sank to the floor, and a scene of instant confusion ensued, some rushing to the young man's aid, others pursuing the murderer; for Olive was not the only one who had witnessed the fatal shot.
Several persons had observed the dark face of the stranger peering in at the window, and two persons besides Olive had seen him fire the fatal shot. He was instantly pursued and overtaken, and from his furious ravings he was at first supposed to be an escaped lunatic.