Without mercy he bent her arm back and forth, hurting her cruelly, and at last, forcing her bruised fingers apart, saw that she held nothing between them. Then with a savage oath he struck her full across the face!
Alice staggered back, stunned and dismayed. But she did not waver in her intention to get by him to the door, and thence make her escape into the street. Once free of Ashton she would carry the jewel to Mr. Farnsworth or Tom Oliver if she could not reach its owner.
Ashton divined her scheme. His only hope lay in keeping her prisoner till he could force her to give up the gem. With more brutal words he started to cut off her retreat by putting his back against the door. His whole appearance was transformed by furious passion.
At that moment help came to her from a quarter on which she had not counted. She saw her brother shiver all over, and grow deadly pale. His left hand made a clutching movement toward his heart; he staggered forward, and fell—into her arms.
Alice had seen this once before—an occasion never to be forgotten. She knew the terror-stricken eyes, the awful, helpless appeal for relief from sudden oppression. His livid features brought back to her with agonizing force the face of their dying mother under like conditions. Exerting all her powers she dragged him to a sofa, laid him down, and flew to ring the bell, peal upon peal.
The maid who ran up to answer it gave one frightened glance into the room and rushed back to the landing to summon help from any one who might be passing on the stairs. Her call brought among others a gentleman just admitted into the hall below. In the maze of her feelings Alice hardly felt surprised to see Tom Oliver entering her brother’s room. She begged him, pathetically, to explain to the proprietors of the house her right to be there, then went on her knees again beside the prostrate form upon the lounge. In a very few moments a physician came, and Alice, giving place to him, let Tom lead her over to a window, where he left her looking out into the night.
Returning presently he told her that all was over. Ashton had died without coming back to consciousness.
“You will let me take charge of everything,” he added, with deep feeling in his voice. “When I stood with the doctor looking down at him I forgot what I came here to say—everything, in fact, but that I once loved him like a brother.”
“I think I know what you came for,” she answered, wistfully. “You meant to silence him for the future, and now death has done it—oh, how awfully!”
She shuddered. The pain of her body was beginning to make itself severely felt. It recalled to her the prize for which she had risked so much, that lay close to the tumultuous beatings of her heart. Above all things she longed for advice from Tom concerning it, but could not bring herself to speak the words that would incriminate the dead.