Lily Lawrence dropped down upon the floor and lay there like one already smitten with death.
"Oh, God!" she thought, "if I only had not listened I might indeed have been asleep, and death might have stolen on me unconsciously. How dreadful to lie here and wait for death each moment."
She lay there shuddering and trying to pray as the fatal minutes crept on, each one bearing away on its swift sands the brief span of precious life yet left her.
At each movement in the next room she shivered and started, thinking that old Haidee was about to come forth to execute her murderous task.
How long she lay there weeping and praying she never knew, but at length she heard the clock in the lower hall strike ten.
The next instant stealthy steps came gliding through the hall to her door.
Already she seemed to feel the horrible clutch of old Haidee's hands about her warm, white throat, pressing out the life.
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
"Oh, God spare me!" breathed Lily, clasping her hands in agony as she heard the key grate in the lock, and the hand of the murderess turning the knob of the door.