Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/318

 which none the less surely there must come the awakening—to reality.

Harold Merton had told all—Varge raised his hand and passed it slowly across his eyes. To his soul a coward, Merton must have lived a life of frightful terror for the last two days—from the moment he had known his mother could not live—and then, a nervous wreck, unbalanced, half mad, the collapse had come, and, his fears climaxed by the belief that at last there was nothing to stand between him and his crime, the little hold he had left upon himself had been torn from him and he had made his wild, frantic appeal—a damning confession in itself. It had not been a pleasant sight when the man had become more rational and the little doctor, without mercy, pitilessly, tolerating no word of interference, had probed and dragged the miserable story from Merton, and in the presence of Doctor MacCausland as a witness had made the wretched man sign his confession.

And then—it seemed to ring in Varge's ears yet—they had gone downstairs and left Merton tossing upon his bed, locked in his room, where they had taken him. They had stood in the hall, Doctor MacCausland with white, horror-stricken face, Doctor Kreelmar mopping with his handkerchief at his brow, his jaws clamped and outthrust a little; and then—yes, he could hear it yet—the sullen, muffled report of a revolver shot. It was he who had broken in the door and found Merton a huddled heap upon the floor—that was all—the man had never spoken again—but darkness had fallen and evening had come before Doctor MacCausland had finally straightened up from the bedside, and in strange, awed, reverent