"Drop it!" said the Professor again. "Drop it, you fool!" But his voice of authority cracked, and he cried out: "For God's sake don't make a mess of it now."
Smith continued to look at him with that ghost of a smile on his lips, and answered with slow words. He patted the pistol.
"This'll put me out of your reach," he said. "This is what'll do it.
You won't be able to patch up the hole this'll make."
He raised the pistol, Mary, powerless to move clenched her hands and whole being for the shock of imminent tragedy.
"Wait!" cried the Professor, and cast a furtive deprecating glance back at Mary. "Wait! I tell you it's no use; you can hurt yourself and disfigure yourself and weaken and impair your body, but not the life! Not the life! I tell you—it's no good!" He flung out a long arm and his great forefinger pointed at Smith imperatively. "I'll have you back," he said. "I'll have you back. You're mine, my man; and I'll hold you. Put that pistol down; put it down, I tell you! Or else——" his arm dropped, and the command failed from his voice. He spoke in the tones of tired indifference. "Do it," he said. "Shoot yourself, if you want to. I'll deal with you afterwards."
There was a pause, measured in heart-beats. Smith showed yet his face of serene gravity. When he spoke, it was strange to hear the voice of the back-streets, the gutter's phrase, expressing that quiet assurance.
"If it wasn't you," he said, "it wouldn't be nobody else. It's only you as can do it." He paused, with lips pursed in deliberation. "If you knowed what I know," he went on, "you'd see it wasn't right. I reckon you'll have to come too."
"Eh?" The Professor looked up quickly, and threw up an arm as though to guard a blow. Mary screamed, and the noise of the shot startled her from her posture and she fell on her knees. The Professor took one pace forward, turned sharply, and fell full length on his face. She heard Smith say something, but the words passed her undistinguished; then the second shot sounded, and the fire-irons clattered as he tumbled among them.
Those that ran up to the room upon the sound of the shooting found her kneeling in the door with her hand over her face.
"Bury them! bury them!" she was crying. "Bury them and let them go!"