CHAPTER III.
THE VERDICT OF THE WORLD.
Like a bolt of lightning from a summer sky came that terrible hour into the hitherto calm existence of Eva Somerville—an hour that was destined to change the whole current of her life, as a little rippling brook, singing along in sunshine and shadow, between green, flowery banks, suddenly empties into a wide, tumultuous torrent, rushing on with irresistible force and thunderous noise to some mighty falls.
Little Eva, half dazed by the strangeness of the night’s events, and horrified by her cousin’s sudden entrance and frenzied accusations against her honor, had crouched down among her pillows in an agony of alarm, unable to utter a word in self-defense until the two men clashed in mortal combat, and the crash of the discharged revolver, filling the room with blue smoke, assured her that murder was being done.
Instantly, and with a moan of despair, she comprehended Terry’s fatal mistake that had driven him into murderous frenzy.
He believed that Doctor Ludington was her clandestine lover. For, how else could he ever have chanced to be there in her room at midnight, alone with her, a trespasser; a Ludington, a member of that family—sworn foes to the Groves’ clan for over thirty years, maintaining a smoldering vendetta after the deplorablefashion of some West Virginia and Kentucky sections, a survival of the savage spirit of their feudal ancestry.
Jealous rage fired Terry’s heart also, for Eva, even as a child, had felt for him a subtle aversion she could never overcome, and that was only increased in the past year by some lover-like advances he had imprudently made.
“Poor Terry, how strange the instinct that draws him to me, while I, in my turn, recoil from him. He is not such a bad fellow, truly,” she had thought more than once, in girlish pity.
But he appeared to her in the light of a fiend now, as the scathing words of his denunciation burned her cheeks with shame.
Now she comprehended her mysterious aversion to him always; a premonition of the evil he was destined to bring into her life.
And he was murdering Doctor Ludington in cold blood; a man who had never harmed him, who, although led into the house by a hideous practical joke, had dared its dangers on an errand of mercy.
He was the enemy of her house, but somehow she could not forget the tenderness of his dark-blue eyes and the wistful pleading of his musical voice as he said:
“We have broken bread together—may we not be friends?”
And he was being murdered before her eyes. It must not be, and shriek after shriek rang from her lipsas the men fought wildly together for possession of the revolver, while upon the light matting that covered the floor she saw ghastly bloodstains dripping down from Ludington’s breast.
Heedless of her little bare feet and her white night robe, she leaped from the bed and clutched Terry’s coat, trying with all her feeble strength to drag him off his victim, crying:
“Let him go! Let him go! He is innocent! You are a coward to shoot an unarmed man!”
Angrily, viciously, as if she had been a feather, Terry shook off her light hold so that she fell to the floor before gran’ther’s feet, who, aroused by the disturbance and Eva’s shrieks, now came stumping into the room, leaning heavily on his cane.
At the same moment Miss Tabitha and the twins, followed by several young men, came hurrying to the scene along the dimly lighted hall.
The hay wagon, returning with its load of happy revelers, had stopped at the gate just in time for them to hear the shot and the frenzied shrieks of Eva following upon it.
“Heavens, what is that?” they all cried together, except the twins, who thought they understood it, for Patty exclaimed:
“It is only Eva. She has been trying some silly Hallowe’en charms, and has frightened herself, fancying she sees a face in the glass over her shoulder, or some such nonsense!”
“But you forget the pistol shot! Something reallymust have happened. Some of us had better go in with you and see,” said one of the young men, so several followed them into the house.
And just as Eva fell at gran’ther’s feet they trooped in behind him and came upon the startling scene.
They all saw how Doctor Ludington was trying to wrest the weapon from his assailant’s hand; they all saw that, just as he grasped Terry’s wrist, turning it aside from himself, the weapon was accidentally discharged.
The bullet buried itself in Terry’s brain.
At the same moment the failing strength of Ludington made him lose his grasp and the antagonists reeled apart, each sinking heavily down, their dying groans mingling on the air of the Hallowe’en night.
The frenzied screams of the women added to the horror of the scene.
The twins had rushed to their brother’s side and knelt down by him, quickly followed by gran’ther, who caught his hand, moaning:
“Poor Terry; poor boy! What is it all about? The fighting? My poor head is dazed.”
He did indeed have a piteous look, as he grasped the hand that was already growing cold in his as Terry Groves, with his eyes fast glazing, made a supreme effort and gasped:
“I was going along the hall to my—room—heard voices—peeped in Eva’s door—Ludington was with her—the vile hussy. To wipe—out—the foul—stain—I shot him! I—I——”
“Oh, Terry, Terry! don’t die!” shrieked Lydia wildly.
“He’s dead!” added Patty, in awe-struck accents, as his jaw dropped and the gray pallor of death settled on his boyish face, for he was but one-and-twenty.
Gran’ther Groves crouched down, gazing like one turned to stone, while the sobs and cries of the bereaved sisters, weeping in each other’s arms, filled the room.
Meanwhile, Miss Tabitha, after the first moments of consternation, had taken dire alarm in her maidenly bashfulness at Eva’s dishabille, and tearing the long wrap from her own shoulders, hastily threw it around the girl, muttering as she did so:
“Hain’t you ashamed o’ yourself, gal, walking round here in your bare feet an’ nightgown before all these men? An’ what are them two doing in here, this time o’ night, anyway, an’ fighting like Indians, I want to know?”
But Eva answered nothing, and did not even seem conscious of her words or presence, for at that moment the second horrible report of the revolver rang in her ears like the trump of doom.
“Oh, my God, have mercy!” she cried as the combatants fell apart, each sinking heavily to the floor with piteous, dying groans.
It seemed to her as if the point of a sword had entered her own heart, and she threw out her arms toward heaven with that wild invocation to her God for mercy.
As the smoke of the revolver cleared away she saw them all running toward Terry, leaving Ludington alone, but for herself, and with a moan of anguish she flung herself by his side.
She saw that his white shirt front was crimson with his lifeblood; that the gray pallor of death was on his handsome face; that his blue eyes were dim and set.
A great wave of anguish and pain, mixed with tenderness, surged over the girl.
She bent her face close to his, and impulsively kissed his cold brow with yearning lips, and murmured:
“Good-by, good-by! If you had lived I would have loved you!”
They heard her wild words, all of them. They used them against her afterward.
But, as for Eva, she had forgotten all but the man who lay before her, dying. She hardly thought that his dulled senses could comprehend her words, but, to her surprise, his drooping lids flew open wide, and a sort of radiant surprise and joy gleamed for a moment in his eyes, ere they grew dim again with the mists of death.
One of the young men knelt by him and gently, closed the staring blue eyes.
“He is gone, poor fellow!” he said gently.
All had heard Terry’s dying words, and by the verdict of the world Eva was guilty, though pure as snow in the sight of Heaven.