A tiny red spot flamed on the white skin of the boy"s forehead, the straight figure swayed, and pitched forward face down on the rug.
The woman staggered back, cowering in the shadows.
The father knelt beside the quivering form, clasped his left hand in Tom"s, placed the revolver to his temple and fired. The silver-gray head sank slowly against the breast of the boy as a piercing scream from Helen"s lips rang through the silent hall.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
SIN FULL GROWN
The sensitive soul of the girl had seen the tragedy before she rushed into the library. At the first shot she sprang to her feet, her heart in her throat. The report had sounded queerly through the closed doors and she was not sure. She had entered the hall, holding her breath, when the second shot rang out its message of death.
She was not the woman who faints in an emergency. She paused just a moment in the door, saw the ghastly heap on the floor and rushed to the spot.
She tore Tom"s collar open and placed her ear over his heart:
"O G.o.d! He"s alive--he"s alive!"
She turned and saw Cleo leaning against the table with blanched face and chattering teeth.
"Call Andy and Aunt Minerva--and go for the doctor--his heart"s beating--quick--the doctor--he"s alive--we may save him!"
She knelt again on the floor, took Tom"s head in her lap, wiped the blood from the clean, white forehead, pressed her lips to his and sobbed:
"Come back, my own--it"s I--Helen, your little wife--I"m calling you--you can"t die--you"re too young and life"s too dear. We"ve only begun to live, my sweetheart! You shall not die!"
The tears were raining on his pale face and her cries had become little wordless prayers when Andy and Minerva entered the room.
She nodded her head toward Norton"s motionless body:
"Lift him on the lounge!"
They moved him tenderly:
"See if his heart"s still beating," she commanded.
Andy reverently lowered his dusky face against the white bosom of his master. When he lifted it the tears had blinded his eyes:
"n.o.b.u.m," he said slowly, "he"s done dead!"
The tick of the little French clock on the mantel beneath the mother"s portrait rang with painful clearness.
Helen raised her hand to Minerva:
"Open the windows and let the smoke out. I"ll hold him in my arms until the doctor comes."
"Ya.s.sum----"
Minerva drew the heavy curtains back from the tall windows, opened the cas.e.m.e.nts and the perfumed air of the beautiful Southern night swept into the room.
A cannon boomed its final cry of victory from the Square and a rocket, bursting above the tree-tops, flashed a ray of red light on the white face of the dead.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
CONFESSION
When Dr. Williams entered the room Helen was still holding Tom"s head in her lap.
He had stirred once with a low groan.
"The major is dead, but Tom"s alive, doctor!" she cried through her tears.
"He"s going to live, too--I feel it--I know it--tell me that it"s so!"
The lips trembled pitifully with the last words.
The doctor felt the pulse and was silent.
"It"s all right? He"s going to live--isn"t he?" she asked pathetically.
"I can"t tell yet, my child," was the calm answer.
He examined the wound and ran his hand over the blonde hair. His fingers stopped suddenly and he felt the head carefully. He bent low, parted the hair and found a damp blood mark three inches above the line of the forehead.
"See!" he cried, "the ball came out here. His head was thrown far back, the bullet struck the inner skull bone at an angle and glanced."
"What does it mean?" she asked breathlessly.
The doctor smiled:
"That the brain is untouched. He is only stunned and in a swoon. He"ll be well in two weeks."
Helen lifted her eyes and sobbed:
"O G.o.d!"
She tried to bend and kiss Tom"s lips, her body swayed and she fell backward in a dead faint.
Andy and Minerva carried her to her room, left Cleo to minister to her and returned to help the doctor.
He examined Norton"s body to make sure that life was extinct and placed the body on an improvised bed on the floor until he should regain his senses.
In half an hour Tom looked into the doctor"s face: