There was a moment of torturing suspense and deep, unbroken silence.  Violet’s eyes were on him so she did not watch the clock, but she was suddenly moved by some irresistible impulse to note how Mrs. Zabriskie was bearing herself at this critical moment, and casting a hurried glance in her direction she perceived her tall figure swaying from side to side, as if under an intolerable strain of feeling.  Her eyes were on the clock, the hands of which seemed to creep with snail-like pace along the dial, when unexpectedly, and a full minute before the minute hand had reached the stroke of five, Violet caught a movement on her part, saw the flash of something round and white show for an instant against the darkness of her cloak, and was about to shriek warning to the doctor, when the shrill, quick stroke of a clock rang out on the frosty air, followed by the ping and flash of a pistol.

A sound of shattered glass, followed by a suppressed cry, told the bystanders that the bullet had struck the mark, but before any one could move, or they could rid their eyes of the smoke which the wind had blown into their faces, there came another sound which made their hair stand on end and sent the blood back in terror to their hearts.  Another clock was striking, which they now perceived was still standing upright on the stump where Mrs. Zabriskie had placed it.

Whence came the clock, then, which had struck before the time and been shattered for its pains?  One quick look told them.  On the ground, ten paces to the right, lay Zulma Zabriskie, a broken clock at her side, and in her breast a bullet which was fast sapping the life from her sweet eyes.

They had to tell him, there was such pleading in her looks; and never will any of the hearers forget the scream which rang from his lips as he realized the truth.  Breaking from their midst, he rushed forward, and fell at her feet as if guided by some supernatural instinct.

“Zulma,” he shrieked, “what is this?  Were not my hands dyed deep enough in blood that you should make me answerable for your life also?”

Her eyes were closed but she opened them.  Looking long and steadily at his agonized face, she faltered forth: 

“It is not you who have killed me; it is your crime.  Had you been innocent of Mr. Hasbrouck’s death your bullet would never have found my heart.  Did you think I could survive the proof that you had killed that good man?”

“I did it unwittingly.  I—­”

“Hush!” she commanded, with an awful look, which happily he could not see.  “I had another motive.  I wished to prove to you, even at the cost of my life, that I loved you, had always loved you, and not—­”

It was now his turn to silence her.  His hand crept to her lips, and his despairing face turned itself blindly towards those about them.

“Go!” he cried; “leave us!  Let me take a last farewell of my dying wife, without listeners or spectators.”