WOMAN’S MIDNIGHT FIGHT FOR LIFE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2330, 17 September 1921, Page 1

WOMAN’S MIDNIGHT FIGHT FOR LIFE.

SUICIDE PACT AND A LASTMINUTE ESCAPE.

Pa ris. A suicide pact from which one of le parties wanted to escape at the st moment was the cause of a terIde midnight drama on the railway ear Orleans.

The parties were the wife of a msiness man of Nivers and her-lov-er, an ex-sailor named Colin. They walked along the iiuo to a bridge crossing the Loire. An express train was signalled and they, stood between the metals, as arranged, to wait for death. As the noise of the

pproaching train was heard the •vers, sobbing, fell into each others nns in a farewell embrace. When the train actually came in

sight the woman’s courage failed her and she strove desperately to break away from the man. A terrible struggle on the line followed, the man clinging to her and urging her not to flinch in carrying out the pact, while the woman begged and pleaded to l)e released. As the roar of the train grew louder and louder the woman’s shrieks became moie frenzied.

The locomotive’s headlights shone on the struggling couple, and the engine was nof more than a few yards away when the woman gave a superhuman wrench, tore herself from the man’s grasp, and sprang from the track just as the express dashed by. The man was killed instantly. The woman, almost in a state of collapse dragged herself to the nearest police station and recounted her horrible experience.