She ran back the whole width of the lobby, and flung herself against the door; but of what avail was her poor strength? Then she rushed out upon the roof of the house, with a vague intention of pulling up the ladder after her, and fleeing over other roofs for help and succour; but the inexorable walls rose high above;—there were no means of escape, no chance of assistance. Then she sped down the stairs once more—down the stairs and past the landing where there was already a dark pool of blood forming outside the door. She crossed the yard to the carpenter’s shop, and, seizing a hammer, ran to the outer gates, and struck blow after blow, striving to break the lock; she called and cried, but the people sweeping by never heard her, for the noise of passing conveyances deadened a voice already hoarse with excitement, exhausted with fear. She beat against the solid wood, and her blows were but woman’s blows, faint, and feeble, and weak; she screamed for help, but there was no one to hear. In her anguish, in that awful extremity of her life, she looked once again round the yard; and, as she did so, her eye fell on the factory bell, which hung suspended on the highest point of the building. That was her last hope; desperately, almost, she flung aside the useless hammer, and sprung to the bell; she seized the rope with her soft, fair hands, and clang, clang, clang, went the clapper—clang, clang, clang. Through the summer evening’s air, through the gathering twilight, the bell rang out—clang, clang; cling, clang, clang; the arms never grew tired, the hands never felt the blistering of the rope. Clang, clang; Heather never ceased till she heard a knocking at the gate, and the police inquiring what was the matter?—“who’s inside?” Thrice Heather tried to answer them, but her lips refused to utter any articulate sound. Then, “Break open the gate!” she at length managed to reply. “Make haste!—make haste!” They sent for picks and crowbars, and beat in the wood-work; then a couple of policemen stepped inside, whilst a couple more kept the crowd back. “Come upstairs!” Heather said; and when they reached the landing, she pointed to the floor, and then to the room, where some tragedy, she knew, had taken place. “It is locked!” she replied. “My husband!” One of the men put his shoulder to the door and forced it open. He could not fling it wide, on account of something which barred the entrance; but, squeezing himself through the aperture, he entered the room, and found Arthur lying on the floor with his throat cut, and a razor beside him! “Bear a hand here,” the man whispered to his fellow, “and don’t let her come in;” but Heather was not to be kept back. She crept through the opening likewise, and stood face to face with that, the visible presence of the dread which had brought her back miles and miles to preserve him from one crime only—so it seemed to her—in order that he might commit another!