But it was different with Otho, for deep in his heart burned a mad passion for bewitching Floy.
Though he had plotted with his sister to destroy her, it was her soul he meant to wreck, not her beautiful body. That he worshiped with doting admiration, and had hoped to win.
It almost seemed as if the hands of angels had been outstretched to foil his nefarious designs, and to draw Floy back, pure and unspotted, to heaven.
With these thoughts raging in his excited mind, Otho fled in horror from the scene, and to drown his haunting remorse, spent the night in a drunken orgie with some boon companions, who took him to his hotel in the “wee sma’ hours ayant the twal,” and consigned him to the porters to put to bed.
At noon of the next day he awoke with the usual large head incident to such dissipations, and swore at himself for a besotted fool, after which he ordered brandy and soda and breakfast.
When he had been bathed, and shaved, and dressed, he still remained pale, tremulous, and shaken, for the horror of last evening had rushed freshly over his mind.
“She is dead, poor little Floy, so pretty and so gay, like a merry little humming-bird ever on the wing—dead, and Maybelle will rejoice at the news, but as for me, I must ever bear about with me a load of remorse that will drive me to madness,” he groaned, as he rang the bell for the morning papers, nerving himself to read an account of the tragedy.
It was there, on the first page of the paper they brought him, in glaring head-lines:
“A Plunge to Death!
“A Beautiful Young Girl Falls from the Fourth-Story Window of Her Home on Adams Street, and is Removed to Bellevue Hospital in a Dying Condition.