“He’s dead!” added Patty, in awe-struck accents, as his jaw dropped and the gray pallor of death settled on his boyish face, for he was but one-and-twenty.
Gran’ther Groves crouched down, gazing like one turned to stone, while the sobs and cries of the bereaved sisters, weeping in each other’s arms, filled the room.
Meanwhile, Miss Tabitha, after the first moments of consternation, had taken dire alarm in her maidenly bashfulness at Eva’s dishabille, and tearing the long wrap from her own shoulders, hastily threw it around the girl, muttering as she did so:
“Hain’t you ashamed o’ yourself, gal, walking round here in your bare feet an’ nightgown before all these men? An’ what are them two doing in here, this time o’ night, anyway, an’ fighting like Indians, I want to know?”
But Eva answered nothing, and did not even seem conscious of her words or presence, for at that moment the second horrible report of the revolver rang in her ears like the trump of doom.
“Oh, my God, have mercy!” she cried as the combatants fell apart, each sinking heavily to the floor with piteous, dying groans.
It seemed to her as if the point of a sword had entered her own heart, and she threw out her arms toward heaven with that wild invocation to her God for mercy.
As the smoke of the revolver cleared away she saw them all running toward Terry, leaving Ludington alone, but for herself, and with a moan of anguish she flung herself by his side.
She saw that his white shirt front was crimson with his lifeblood; that the gray pallor of death was on his handsome face; that his blue eyes were dim and set.
A great wave of anguish and pain, mixed with tenderness, surged over the girl.