“You say you saw your husband fall? Was it after your rifle was discharged or before?”
“I—do not know,” the girl replied. “This morning the whole thing is like a disordered nightmare dimly remembered. I know there was a moment when I was tempted to wickedness. There was a terrible hatred in my heart for my husband, and as I saw him standing there, it flashed on me how easy it would be to free myself from him for ever. It was only a moment—like a sudden madness, and then I saw him drop in the snow.... I do not know what happened, but this morning I examined my rifle.”
Her voice quivered and failed, and suddenly she bent her face in her mittened hand and broke into a storm of weeping. The corporal himself was greatly moved by her distress, but the sight of it somehow relieved his worst fears.
“Miss Gargrave,” he said hopefully, “you examined your rifle this morning. Tell me what you found?”
“An empty shell in the chamber,” said the girl, sobbing bitterly.
“Yes,” he said quickly, a touch of excitement in his manner, “and in the magazine? Tell me, quick.”
“There was a full clip—but for the shell which had been fired.”
“Ah!” said Bracknell with a sigh of relief. “I thought so. Now think carefully, and tell me, did you hear another shot fired?”
The trouble in the girl’s face cleared suddenly, and a light of hope flashed in her eyes. “Why do you ask?” she cried. “I thought I did, but this morning I could not be sure. I thought it might be the echo of my own rifle—”
“It was not an echo,” interrupted the corporal quickly. “It was the discharge of a rifle. I was a little distance away, and I distinctly heard the reports, one so close on the heels of the other that the two seemed almost like one.”