When they were perhaps halfway up the staircase there came to their ears, unmistakably clear and permitting no possibility of a mistake, even in the tenseness of the moment, the sound of a hastily slammed door. Gilmore stopped dead in his tracks. An opening door, some member of the household aroused by the scream and the explosion, would have been perfectly understandable. But a closing door! There was the suggestion of hasty, headlong flight. Under the circumstances it was a sinister sound. Nearing the top of the stairs, the two men, master and servant, saw a patch of light rays which came from an open doorway down the hall. "That light!" panted Gilmore. "It comes from my wife's room. The door of her room is open--her light is burning!" They had now reached that ominously opened door; it stood ajar for perhaps ten inches. Gilmore stopped again, the breath wheezing through his teeth, as if he might have had a presentiment of what he might find on the other side of that panel. The old butler went on forward, laid his withered hand upon the knob; but he was unprepared for the sight which met his eyes. With a gasp of horror he reeled back. "You--you were right, sir," he whispered hoarsely. "It is your wife, and she----Be brave, sir--be brave!" Helen Gilmore lay in a half-reclining posture on a wicker couch. Looking only at her face, one might have thought her sleeping, such was the repose of her features. But the bosom of her silk robe was stained crimson. On the floor, beneath the outflung fingers of one hand, there was an automatic pistol. Gilmore took another brief step forward and over the butler's shoulder saw his wife, the light from one of the wall brackets flooding across her beautiful face--still beautiful even now. A shudder shook his shoulders, as if the hand of some invisible giant had seized him in a vicious grip. "Your wife has killed herself!" cried Bates. "The poor woman has shot herself!" "Is she dead?" Gilmore cried hoarsely. "I can't--I haven't the strength--the courage to go near her, Bates. Can you tell me if--if my wife is dead?" The butler was trembling in his agitation, but he steeled himself to the ordeal and forced his unwilling feet forward. Even as he neared the couch, he thought one last, weak breath escaped the lips of his master's wife. But he might have been mistaken. His fingers reached out and touched her cheek. "She is still warm," he gulped; "of course she would be--so soon after. But I think she must be dead. You see, sir, the bleeding has stopped. I understand that is a sign of death." He shook his head slowly. "Yes, Mr. Kirklan, I am sure that she is dead." Gilmore collapsed into a chair; head lowered, his eyes closed, as if to blot out the terrible sight in front of him, he began to sob, brokenly, but without tears. A moment later he checked his grief. "You'd better call Doctor Bushnell, Bates," he choked. "There--there might still be a chance of saving her."