Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/68

 with an expression of anguish straight into Tom Barnard's.

Involuntarily he started back, but controlled himself directly. At first, he saw no wound; then, a second look showed a blackened mark low down in the side of the throat, from which blood had poured, but had now ceased to flow.

"Shot!" he ejaculated, half under his breath.

"Shot," Sir Ian echoed.

"My God, sir, who could have done it?"

"Who, indeed!" the other echoed again.

"You found her like this?"

"Yes. Except that—she was almost on her face. I—turned her over to see—to find out—if she were dead, or only"

"I understand, sir. What a ghastly, what an unbelievable thing! I don t believe it now. We shall wake up, sir. It must be some dream."

"Would to God it were," said Sir Ian. "I would die the same death she has died, a hundred times over, if I could bring her back to life. But I can't. That's the horror of it."

"It's enough to drive a man mad, sir," stammered Barnard. "But bear up. At least we'll have revenge on the brute who has done this thing."

"Revenge!" the other man repeated bitterly.

"Oh, I know that won't give her back to you, sir, but flesh and blood is flesh and blood, and it would