She saw the fearful sight, and echoed her sister's scream.

But they were neither of them women to lose their heads and beat the air with their hands.

They got to him, and both of them fought hard with the unconscious sufferer, whose body, in a fresh convulsion, now bounded away from the sofa, and bade fair to batter itself against the ground.
They did all they could to hold him with one arm apiece, and to release his swelling throat with the other.

Their nimble fingers whipped off his neck-tie in a moment; but the distended windpipe pressed so against the shirt-button they could not undo it.

Then they seized the collar, and, pulling against each other, wrenched the shirt open so powerfully that the button flew into the air, and tinkled against a mirror a long way off.
A few more struggles, somewhat less violent, and then the face, from purple, began to whiten, the eyeballs fixed; the pulse went down; the man lay still.
"Oh, my God!" cried Rhoda Somerset.