With the mad strength of horror, she dashed from his arms, and away through the passage, and would have escaped—for the poor cripple could only limp in pursuit—if she had not closed the outer door. By the time she had opened, he was upon her, and they staggered together across the broad walk, when their son from the gate rushed up to them.
“Oh, save me, save me from that beast!” she cried.
“Off, and get back to your den!” shouted Downy.
“A nice son, to part his own parents!” As the old man spoke, he struck his son in the face with his maimed right hand, while he clung to his wife with the other.
Then Donovan Bulwrag, in a fury of the moment, drew his revolver, and shot his father through the heart.
The old man fell on his back a corpse, while the mother was dashed on the grass, and lay senseless. Donovan looked at them both, gave a laugh, put the muzzle in his mouth, and shot himself.
I have no intention to moralize—as a man always says when he begins to do it—but there ended three misguided lives; for although Mrs. Bulwrag recovered slowly some of her bodily health and vigour, her mind was never restored to life again. That hectoring will, and domineering spirit, lapsed into the weakness of a weanling child; and if ever the memory of those haughty days returned, it waned into a shudder, or an abject smile. When Captain—or as he now is called Sir Humphrey Fairthorn came home from his celebrated enterprise, he made due provision in a private asylum for the lady who could no longer pick his pockets. The marriage settlements fell to the ground, with the downfall of the marriage, and six acres of “the most magnificently situated building land in London,” returned to the heritage of Kitty’s mother.
When my uncle and myself came sadly home from that shocking and distressing scene, the power of it lay upon us still, so that we did not care to speak.
“Thank God,” said my wife, as she fell upon my breast, after trying to sponge off the blaze from my temple, which would take some days to heal; “thank God that he is dead at last!”