“Louis!” her tone was sharp, but edged with terror. “Louis—put down that pistol! You don’t know what you are doing.”
She struggled to her feet and now stood before me. God! how beautiful—how tempting that bare white bosom!
“Put down that pistol!” she ordered hysterically.
She was frantic with fear. And her fear was like the blast of a forge upon the white heat of my passion.
I mocked her. A shrill, maniacal laugh burst from my throat. She had said I didn’t know what I was doing! Oh, yes, I did.
“I’m going to kill you!—kill you!” I shrieked, and laughed again.
She swayed forward like a wraith, as I fired. Or perhaps that was the trick played by my eyes as darkness overwhelmed me.
VIII.
A FEW fragmentary pictures stand out in my recollection like clear-etched cameos on the scroll of the past.
One is of Louis, standing dazedly—slightly swaying as with vertigo—looking down at the smoking revolver in his hand. On the floor before him a crumpled figure in ebony and white and vivid crimson.