"Frozen, I stood there gazing at the ghastly object--all the currents of life seeming, for the time being, to stand still. As for Evan, his gaze wandered from his hands to the body, and thence back to his hands. Then, all at once, he burst into a harsh, discordant, maniacal laugh, almost more dreadful to hear than was that which lay so white and still on the floor to look upon.
"'Blood!--blood on my hands--and his blood!' he cried with a half shriek. 'They will say that I did it--I--I!' Again his madman's laugh rang through the room. Then, with a last stare at his crimsoned hands, he turned, and, as I verily believe, without as much as another look at me, he flung wide the door and, passing with staggering strides out into the night, vanished from my sight for ever.
"But before that I was down on my knees by the side of my dead husband. How did I know he was dead? you may possibly ask. My first glance at his face had been enough to assure me that no faintest spark of life animated the marble-like image at my feet. On it was stamped the indescribable seal of death. For all that, as I now knelt by him my hand felt for his heart, but not the slightest fluttering responded to the pressure of my palm. He must have been dead some time. Already the hand I took in mine, and the brow to which I pressed my lips, were of an icy coldness.
"Presently I stood up and asked myself what I ought to do next. An unnatural calm possessed me. My eyes were dry and burning, but it seemed to me as if my limbs were as cold as those of the corpse at my feet. Tears would come later on, tears in abundance, but just then the fountains were fast sealed. I knew, no one better, that what I ought to have done was there and then to raise an alarm and summon the police with all possible speed. 'But if I do that,' I said, 'how can I explain away my presence at this untimely hour? And what if Evan, in his half-demented condition, and with his blood-imbrued hands, should be arrested and confronted with me? Would it not, in such a case, go hard with the pair of us, innocent though we are?' My poor dear husband was dead, of that there could be no doubt. It could do him no good, but might do me infinite harm, were the slightest shadow of suspicion to fall upon me in connection with the mystery of his murder, as would almost inevitably be the case were I found in that room at that hour with my outdoor things on, without anyone in the house dreaming that I was otherwhere than in my own chamber.