Surely the pitying angels, who know and see all things, hovered near and aided weak, despairing Kathleen in her frantic struggle for liberty.
As Ivan Belmont stepped out to open the water-chute, she sprung with a strength born of despair against the door. The rusty lock yielded to her onslaught, the door fell crashing beneath her weight, and staggering, tottering, her loosened golden hair flying like a banner behind her, Kathleen fled across the moonlit space, the torturing sound of the revolving wheel grating on her ears, the flying sawdust blinding her eyes, and gained his side. Brave Kathleen, noble Kathleen, you are not one-half a second too soon! The swift revolutions of the saw are drawing your doomed lover closer to the encroaching steel! Throw out in an agony those fair white arms, gifted with such momentary, wondrous strength, grasp your loved one wildly, eagerly, and draw him madly from his couch of deadly peril! Saved! And watching angels weep joyful tears at the victory of love over hate and revenge.
Fedora, dazed with wonder, mad with rage, darted forward to thwart Kathleen's angelic purpose. But Heaven had interposed. Ere she reached them, Kathleen's frenzied hands had dragged Ralph from the fatal plank. His falling body struck the fiend, tripping and throwing her violently upon the cruel saw. Blindly she threw up her arms, shrieked in demoniac fear, and then—there came a horrible, grating sound, the sickening smell of fresh blood spurting into the air, and—Fedora's headless body fell with an awful thud upon the floor, while from the gloom beyond there followed upon her dying shriek the sound of pistol-shots and men's angry voices! Jack Wren and Teddy Darrell had arrived upon the scene; but only that the heavenly hosts had helped Kathleen, they would have come too late.
Ivan Belmont, in the midst of his exultation over his terrible crime, had met a swift retribution. Turning to rejoin Fedora, and gloat with her over the destruction of their victims, he was confronted by the detective and Teddy Darrell. Snatching a pistol from his breast, he fired at the foremost one, and received in return a fatal bullet from the ready weapon of the dashing detective. He fell dead, and his crime-stained soul wandered forth on the wings of the night, with that of Fedora, to the realms of darkness and eternal gloom.
Hastening into the mill in search of Kathleen, the two men were horrified to find upon the floor the ghastly, decapitated body of Fedora.
In another moment they saw near at hand the inanimate forms of Ralph and Kathleen.
"Oh, Heaven, we are too late! They are all dead!" exclaimed Teddy in anguish; but a low moan from Kathleen arrested him.
He stooped over his beautiful betrothed and lifted her in his arms. She opened her eyes, but they gazed blankly into his, and Kathleen murmured, gladly:
"Ralph, darling! I have saved you from a terrible death. Thank God! thank God! for I love only you, and had you died, I should have gone mad with grief!"