Part 70 (2/2)

He stood still, staring at her. He seemed to have lost the power of speech.

”You have insulted me almost beyond pardon!” she went on. ”Your accusations are all lies! I love the King,--but I am not the King's mistress! I would no more be his mistress than I would be your wife!”

Slowly, slowly, his hand got at something in his pocket and clutched it almost unconsciously. Slowly, slowly, he raised that hand, still clutching that something,--and his lips parted in a breathless way, showing the wolfish glimmer of white teeth within.

”You--love--the King!” he said in deliberate accents. ”And you dare--you dare to tell me so?”

She raised her golden head with a beautiful defiance and courage.

”I love the King!” she said--”And I dare to tell you so!”

With a lightning quickness of movement the hand that had been groping after an unseen evil now came out into the light, with a sudden sharp crash, and flame of fire!

A faint cry tore the air.

”Ah--Sergius!--Sergius! Oh--G.o.d!”

And Lotys staggered back--stunned, deafened--sick, dizzy----

”Death, death!” she thought, wildly; ”This is death!”

And, with a last desperate rallying of her sinking force, as every memory of her life swept over her brain in that supreme moment, she sprang at her murderer and wrenched the weapon from his hand, clutching it hard and fast in her own.

”Say--say I did it--myself--!” she gasped, in short quick sobs of pain; ”Tell the King--I did it myself--myself! Sergius--save your own life!--I--forgive!”

She reeled, and with a choking cry fell back heavily--dead! Her hair came unbound with her fall, and shook itself round her in a gold wave, as though to hide the horror of the oozing blood that trickled from her lips and breast.

With a horrid sense of unreality Thord stared upon the evil he had done. He gazed stupidly around him. He listened for someone to come and explain to him what had happened. But up in that remote attic, there was no one to hear either a pistol-shot or a cry. There was only one thing to be understood and learnt by heart,--that Lotys, once living, was now dead! Dead! How came she dead? That was what he could not determine.

The heat of his wild fury had pa.s.sed,--leaving him cold and pa.s.sive as a stone.

”Lotys!”

He whispered the name. Horrible! How she looked,--with all that blood!--all that golden hair!

'Tell the King I did it myself!' Yes--the King would have to be told--something! Stooping, he tried to detach the pistol from the lifeless hand, but the fingers, though still warm were tightened on the weapon, and he dared not unclasp them. He was afraid! He stood up again, and looked around him. His glance fell on the knot of regal flowers he had noticed in the morning,--the great roses,--the voluptuous orchids--tied with their golden ribbon. He took them hastily and flung them down beside her,--then watched a little trickling stream of blood running, running towards one of the whitest and purest of the roses.

It reached it, stained it,--and presently drowned it in a little pool.

Horrified, he covered his eyes, and staggered backward against the door.

The evening was growing dark,--through the small high window he could see the stars beginning to s.h.i.+ne as usual. As usual,--though Lotys was dead! That seemed strange! Putting one hand behind him, he cautiously opened the door, still keeping his guarded gaze on that huddled heap of clothes, and blood, and glittering hair which had been Lotys.

”I must get home,” he muttered. ”I have business to attend to--as Deputy to the city, there is much to do--much to do for the People! The People!

My G.o.d! And Lotys dead!”

A kind of hysteric laughter threatened him. He pressed his mouth hard with his hand to choke back this strange, struggling pa.s.sion.

”Lotys! Lotys is dead! There she lies! Someone, I know not who, killed her! No,--no! She has killed herself,--she said so! There she lies, poor Lotys! She will never speak to the People--never comfort them,--never teach them any more--never hold little motherless infants in her arms and console them,--never smile on the sorrowful, or cheer the sick--never! 'I love the King!' she said,--and she died for saying it! One should not love kings! 'Tell the King I did it myself!' Yes, Lotys!--lie still--be at peace--the King shall know--soon enough!”

Still muttering uneasily to himself, he went out, always moving backwards--and with a last look at that fallen breathless form of murdered woman, shut the door stealthily behind him.

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