The long averted blow had fallen.

For years he had guarded himself against sudden emotions, for he was warned of the disease at his heart, and knew his danger; but his anger had killed him.

He might have lived another hour while his rage lasted; but the revulsion of feeling, the sudden repentance for the violence he had done his wife, had sent the blood back to its source too quickly, and with his last cry of love upon his lips he was dead.
Corona had hardly ever seen death.

She gently lowered the dead man's weight till he lay at full length upon the floor.

Then she started to her feet, and drew back against the fireplace, and gazed at the body of her husband.
For fully five minutes she stood motionless, scarcely daring to draw breath, dazed and stupefied with horror, trying to realise what had happened.