That voice was the voice of neither of her own children. The thought that a neighbor’s child might have perished in her home was almost more fearful still. As she fumbled at the door-knob she heard the thud of a little falling body. Then there was a most dreadful silence.
She hastened to the big living-room. She thrust back the somber hanging, and stepped on the arm of her own son.
He was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. He did not move, though his wrist rolled under her foot.
She flinched away, sickened, only to behold a yet ghastlier spectacle: her daughter hung across the arm of a couch, her hair over her face, and one limp hand touching the floor. At her feet was a young nephew in a contorted huddle with his head under the table. The son of a neighbor was stretched out on a chair, his face flung far back and his eyes staring.
And on the panther-skin by the fireplace a young girl whom Mrs. Vickery had never seen before lay sidelong, singularly beautiful in death.
Before this vision of inconceivable horror the mother stood petrified, her throat in the grip of such fright that she could not utter a sound. Then her knees yielded and she sank to the side of her boy, clutched him to her breast, and cried:
“Eugene! my little ’Gene!”
She pressed her palsied lips to his cheek. Thank God, it was still warm. He moved, he thrust her arms away, and mumbled. She bent to catch the words:
“Lea’ me alone! I’m dead!”
With a sigh of infinite relief she spilled him back to the rug, where he lay motionless. She called sharply to the girl on the couch: