The assassin, seeing that his victim no longer moved, threw down his reeking weapon, and, seizing the packages of money on the desk, thrust them into his pockets.  He stepped back through the open window and stooped to pick up his shoes.  As he rose, he saw a sight which for an instant froze him with terror.  A tall and beautiful form, dressed all in white, was swiftly gliding toward him over the grass.  It drew near, and he saw its pale features set in a terrible expression of pity and horror.  It seemed to him like an avenging spirit.  He shut his eyes for a moment in abject fright, and the phantom swept by him and leaped like a white doe upon the platform, through the open window, and out of his sight.  He ran to the gate, quaking and trembling, then walked quietly to the nearest corner, where he sat down upon the curb-stone and put on his shoes.

Mrs. Belding followed, as rapidly as she could, the swift flight of her daughter; but it was some minutes after the young girl had leaped through the window that her mother walked breathlessly through the front door and the hall into the library.  She saw there a sight which made her shudder and turn faint.  Alice was sitting on the floor, holding in her lap the blood-dabbled head of Farnham.  Beside her stood a glass of water, a pitcher, and several towels.  Some of them were red and saturated, some were still fresh and neatly folded.  She was carefully cleansing and wiping the white forehead of the lifeless man of the last red drop.

“Oh, Alice, what is this?” cried her mother.

“He is dead!” she answered, in a hoarse, strained voice.  “I feared so when I first came in.  He was lying on his face.  I lifted him up, but he could not see me.  I kissed him, hoping he might kiss me again.  But he did not.  Then I saw this water on the stand over there.  I remembered there were always towels there in the billiard-room.  I ran and got them, and washed the blood away from his face.  See, his face is not hurt.  I am glad of that.  But there is a dreadful wound in his head.”  She dropped her voice to a choking whisper at these words.

Her mother gazed at her with speechless consternation.  Had the shock deprived her of reason?

“Alice,” she said, “this is no place for you.  I will call the servants and send for a surgeon, and you must go home.”

“Oh, no, mamma.  I see I have frightened you, but there is no need to be frightened.  Yes, call the servants, but do not let them come in here for awhile, not till the doctors come.  They can do no good.  He is dead.”

Mrs. Belding had risen and rung the bell violently.

“Do, mamma, see the servants in the hall outside.  Don’t let them come in for a moment.  Do!  I pray!  I pray!  I will do anything for you.”

There was such intensity of passion in the girl’s prayer that her mother yielded, and when the servants came running in, half-dressed, in answer to the bell, she stepped outside the door and said, “Captain Farnham has been badly hurt.  Two of you go for the nearest doctors.  You need not come in at present.  My daughter and I will take care of him.”