In one hand she still held "the pledge." Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side and on the same spot.

The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the body fell back.

He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her face; she was dead.

Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively.
He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt at once in her pocket (trying to avoid the streaming body)--the same right-hand pocket from which she had taken the key on his last visit.

He was in full possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his hands were still trembling.