The night wind blew upon them, and she could discern his
dilated eyes and piteous amazement.

"Dr. Dunlap has shot me," he said to her. "I don't know why he did it."
And his face fell against her bosom as he died.

PART FOURTH.

THE FLOOD.

The moonlight shone in through both windows and the lantern glimmered.
The choking smell of gunpowder spread from room to room. Two of the
slave men sprung across the sill to pursue Dr. Dunlap, but they could do
nothing. They could see him paddling away from the house, and giving
himself up to the current; a desperate man, whose fate was from that
hour unknown. Night and the paralysis which the flood laid upon human
action favored him. Did a still pitying soul bend above his wild-eyed
and reckless plunging through whirls of water, comprehending that he had
been startled into assassination; that the deed was, like the result of
his marriage, a tragedy he did not foresee? Some men are made for
strong domestic ties, yet run with brutal precipitation into the
loneliness of evil.

A desire to get out of the flood-bound tavern, an unreasonable impulse
to see Angelique Saucier and perhaps be of use to her, a mistakenly
silent entering of the house which he hardly knew how to
approach,--these were the conditions which put him in the way of his
crime. The old journey of Cain was already begun while Angelique was
robbing her great-grand-aunt's bed of pillows to put under Rice Jones.
The aged woman had gone into her shell of sleep, and the muffled shot,
the confusion and wailing, did not wake her. Wachique and another slave
lifted the body and laid it on the quickly spread couch of pillows.

Nobody thought of Maria. She lay quite still, and made no sound in that
flurry of terror.

"He is badly hurt," said Angelique. "Lizette, bring linen, the first
your hand touches; and you, Achille, open his vest and find the wound
quickly."

"But it's no use, ma'amselle," whispered Wachique, lifting her eyes.

"Do not be afraid, poor Achille. I will show you how myself. We cannot
wait for any one to help us. What would my father and Colonel Menard
say, if they found Monsieur Reece Zhone killed in our house?"

In her panic Angelique tore the vest wide, and found the great stain
over the place where the heart should be. She was kneeling, and she
turned back to Peggy, who stood behind her.

Death is great or it is a piteous change, like the slaughter of brutes,
according as we bear