Chapter 29

And meanwhile Mary was left alone in the ghastly silence of the room, crouching in the corner like a hunted animal. Her face was ashen, and her eyes distended; in her quivering hands she clutched the locket.

She was staring at it and staring at it, in terror, powerless to move. She wished to open it; but ten minutes must have gone before she rose and groped her way across the room. She found a chisel and knelt down upon the floor, and worked in frenzied fear to force it. Her hands were like a drunkard's, and she cut herself again and again; but then suddenly the cover flew off, and she pounced upon it.

One glance she took; and then it fell to the ground from her helpless grasp, and she staggered backward, with a shuddering moan, against the wall. She swayed there an instant, and then like a flash she turned and fled across the room. She fumbled for an instant in a drawer of the desk; then a pistol shot rang out, and she sunk down in a quivering heap upon the floor, her brains spattered out upon the carpet.