He bent his head until his pale lips touched the rigid ones of the dead girl. They were icy cold, but the soft curls of bright hair that lightly brushed his forehead, how soft, how silken, how alive, they felt! But she was dead—this girl who had blushed last night beneath his glance, whose voice had been so sweet and low when she spoke to him.
"Ah, Fate is a cruel lord,
A tyrant at best his rule;
And we learn by sin and sword
While here in his rigid school.
Ah, me. I left her with hopes beguiled,
We parted, and Fate looked on and smiled."
The shock and horror of the occasion began to overcome him, strong man as he was; and his head reeled; consciousness forsook him. He fell in a crouching position upon the floor, where he lay until the doctor entered, followed by his gentle, girlish wife.
"Oh, the dear, sweet, pretty creature! what an awful way for her to meet such a fate! The murderer ought to be burned at the stake!" exclaimed the young wife, sorrowfully, and her tears fell fast on Kathleen's face.
Doctor Churchman examined the girl's throat carefully, and said, with a deep sigh:
"Poor thing, she is quite dead! There is nothing I can do for her but to carry her over to our house and take care of the body until her friends come."
A deep groan startled him, and Ralph Chainey staggered dizzily to his feet.
"Ah, sir! so you have recognized this young woman, Dickson tells me. Well, please dictate a telegraph message to her friends at once," Doctor Churchman said to him, gently, for the despairing look on the young man's face touched him with sympathy.
"He must have been in love with the murdered girl," he said to himself.
Ralph went into the little office and sent a message off to Mrs. Carew's address: