Queenie fell upon her knees with the rain beating in upon her white face and long, flowing hair, and clasped her little hands together as her father had taught her to do when she was but a toddling baby-girl.
"Oh, God!" she prayed, lifting her lovely, despairing face to the dark sky as if to catch a glimpse of the all-merciful Father to whom she appealed. "Oh, God, pity and forgive me for sending my soul uncalled for before its divine Maker. And, Heavenly Father, whatever of wrong I have committed, do Thou pity and pardon it. That sin with which I stand charged Thou knowest I would have died a thousand deaths rather than willfully commit it, and——"
She paused, overcome by agonized recollections, and rising, peered out into the darkness below.
"In the morning when he comes out into the garden," she said, "he will find my poor, crushed, bleeding body lying beneath this window. Surely, then, when his murderous hate has driven me to self-destruction, his revenge will be complete!"
She placed her hand on the sill of the window, and leaned forward for the fatal spring that was to end her earthly sorrows.
How slight a thing can distract our attention even in the most absorbing moments of our lives.
Queenie's hands fell upon a cold, wet mass of leaves, and a gust of intoxicating perfume blew into her face. She immediately drew back.
She had suddenly remembered that some thickly twisted vines of ivy and sweet-scented honeysuckle were trained up to her window in the second story.
A thought, as sudden as an inspiration, darted into her mind.