“We have broken bread together—may we not be friends?”
And he was being murdered before her eyes. It must not be, and shriek after shriek rang from her lips as the men fought wildly together for possession of the revolver, while upon the light matting that covered the floor she saw ghastly bloodstains dripping down from Ludington’s breast.
Heedless of her little bare feet and her white night robe, she leaped from the bed and clutched Terry’s coat, trying with all her feeble strength to drag him off his victim, crying:
“Let him go! Let him go! He is innocent! You are a coward to shoot an unarmed man!”
Angrily, viciously, as if she had been a feather, Terry shook off her light hold so that she fell to the floor before gran’ther’s feet, who, aroused by the disturbance and Eva’s shrieks, now came stumping into the room, leaning heavily on his cane.
At the same moment Miss Tabitha and the twins, followed by several young men, came hurrying to the scene along the dimly lighted hall.
The hay wagon, returning with its load of happy revelers, had stopped at the gate just in time for them to hear the shot and the frenzied shrieks of Eva following upon it.
“Heavens, what is that?” they all cried together, except the twins, who thought they understood it, for Patty exclaimed:
“It is only Eva. She has been trying some silly Hallowe’en charms, and has frightened herself, fancying she sees a face in the glass over her shoulder, or some such nonsense!”
“But you forget the pistol shot! Something really must have happened. Some of us had better go in with you and see,” said one of the young men, so several followed them into the house.