“Yes,” she said, and then, “No; let us first be sure there is no life in him.” And, hardly knowing what she did, she stooped down and peered into the glassy eyes of the prostrate man.
Suddenly she turned pale—no, not pale, but ghastly, and cowering back, shook so that the tramp, into whose features a certain refinement had passed since he had acted as her protector, thought she had discovered life in those set orbs, and was stooping down to make sure that this was so, when he saw her suddenly lean forward and, impetuously plunging her hand into the negro’s throat, tear open the shirt and give one look at his bared breast.
It was white.
“O God! O God!” she moaned, and lifting the head in her two hands she gave the motionless features a long and searching look. “Water!” she cried. “Bring water.” But before the now obedient tramp could respond, she had torn off the woolly wig disfiguring the dead man’s head, and seeing the blond curls beneath had uttered such a shriek that it rose above the gale and was heard by her distant neighbors.
It was the head and hair of her husband.
They found out afterwards that he had contemplated this theft for months, that each and every precaution possible to a successful issue to this most daring undertaking had been made use of and that but for the unexpected presence in the house of the tramp, he would doubtless have not only extorted the money from his wife, but have so covered up the deed by a plausible alibi as to have retained her confidence and that of his employers.
Whether the tramp killed him out of sympathy for the defenseless woman or in rage at being disappointed in his own plans has never been determined. Mrs. Chivers herself thinks he was actuated by a rude sort of gratitude.