Sellars tried to struggle to his feet, but other hands forced him with irresistible pressure back into the chair. His elbow knocked the lamp from the table. It overturned on the floor; and at that moment the fire on the hearth went out, leaving the room in utter darkness.
The rain and wind had suddenly ceased. The cat, on the roof, was mewing in an agony of terror. Far across the swamp, the bell of one of the channel buoys sent out a mournful sound, like the bell in the belfry of a church as a funeral approaches.
The chill, clammy hands that encircled Sellars' wrists with a slow, steady pressure forced the muzzle of his revolver against his forehead. He tried desperately to resist, but he was as putty in the grip of those unseen hands.
And then, in a far corner of the room, he saw Martha. And her face was red with blood from the wound he had inflicted.
Sellars made a desperate effort to rise from his chair. The thought flashed through his mind that if he could reach her he would be saved. But in the grip of those uncanny, unearthly forces he was powerless.
The muzzle of the revolver was forced back slowly, irresistibly. Now, like the finger of fate, it pointed directly at his forehead.
A pressure on his finger, a flash of fire before his eyes! Martha swayed forward as if to embrace—drifting through space, drifting, drift—. . . .
"SUICIDE," said Carson, at the inquest. "A constitution undermined by long and excessive use of alcohol and drugs. Brain snapped. Undoubtedly he was already insane when he killed his wife."
"But what about the statement in deceased's handwriting, containing what purported to be a record of the happenings of the hours immediately preceding his death?" asked the coroner. "That seems rational enough."
"Alcohol and drugs," said the doctor shortly. "Hallucinations."
And he turned abruptly, as if he were glad to have done with the case. For Carson was as hard-headed a man as you could find in the country, and his pride was that he wasn't superstitious.
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