She pounced on him like a tigress, and fastened
her fingers on his throat,--clutching his flesh and breathlessly
muttering, "Never!--never! Never can you hide away from me any more!
Together--together! I will never let you go!--" till, as his eyes
rolled up in agony and his jaw relaxed, she uttered a shout of
ecstasy to see him die! He sank heavily under her fierce grasp which
she never relaxed for an instant, and his dead weight dragged her
unconsciously down--down!--she not heeding or knowing whither she
was moving,--down--still down!--till, as she clung to his inert
body, madly determining not to let it go, she fell,--fast grappling
her betrayer's corpse,--into the ominous stillness of the river. The
flood opened, as it were, to receive the two,--the dead and the
living--there was a slight ripple as though a mouth in the water
smiled--then the usual calm surface reflected the moon once more,
and there was no sign of trouble. Nothing struggled,--nothing
floated,--all was perfectly tranquil. The bells chimed from all the
churches in the city a quarter to midnight, and their pretty echoes
were wafted across the water,--no other sound disturbed the
silence,--not a trace of the struggle was left, save just one
smeared track of grass and slime, which, if examined carefully,
might have been found sprinkled with blood.
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