"Would you have me go to you penniless? I will come to you with a fortune. Believe me, trust me, and wait. You will be on the stone terrace at twelve to-night?"
"She will," said the American. "I'll wait in the boat. 'Tain't likely they want me to be present at their interview. Just remind my lady to fetch along the three hundred pounds, and don't let her fail to come. I want to sail in the 'Angelina Dobbs' to-night."
"She will not fail. She will come."
Her eyes blazed up with a lurid fire as she said it.
"She will be there," she said, "and she shall fetch the three hundred pounds. Do you not fail!"
"I will not. Will you be there, too, Sybilla?"
"I? Of course not. There is no need of me."
"Then we say good-bye here?"
"Yes. Good-bye until we meet in New York."
"I will write to you from there," he said, wringing her hand. "Good-bye, Sybilla! I will be at the trysting-place to-night. Be sure the other party is, too."
"Without fail. Adieu, and—forever!"
She waved her hand and flitted away, uttering the last word under her breath.
Mr. Parmalee watched her out of sight, heaved a heavy sigh, and went back to the house.
Swiftly Sybilla Silver fluttered along in the chill evening wind, her face to the sunset sky. But not the pale luster of that February sunset lighted her dark face with that lurid light—the flame burned within. Two fierce red spots blazed on either cheek: her eyes glowed like living coals; her hands were clinched under her shawl.
"She will be there," she whispered, under her breath—"she will be there, but she never will return. By the wrongs of the dead, by the vengeance I have sworn, this night shall be her last on earth. And he shall pay the penalty—my oath will be kept, the astrologer's prediction fulfilled, and Zenith the gypsy avenged!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
"HAVE YOU PRAYED TO-NIGHT, DESDEMONA?"
The sun went down—a fierce and wrathful sunset. Black and brazen yellow flamed in the western sky; the sea lay glassy and breathless; the wind came in fitful gusts until the sun went down, and then died out in dead and ominous calm; night fell an hour before its time.
My lady sat by her chamber window, looking out at black sea and blacker sky. Exquisite pictures, wonderful bric-a-brac treasures, inlaid tables and cabinets, richest carpets and curtains, and chairs that were like ivory touched up with gold, made the room a miracle of beauty.
But my lady herself, sitting alone amid the rose-colored curtains, looking blankly out at the menacing sky, wore a face as dark as that sky itself. She had wasted to a shadow; dark circles under her hollow eyes told of sleepless nights and wretched days; her cheeks were haggard, her lips bloodless.
The white morning-dress she still wore clung loosely around her wasted figure; all the bright hair was pushed impatiently off her face and confined in a net.
No one who had seen Harrie Hunsden, radiant as Hebe, blooming as Venus, daring as Diana, at the memorable fox-hunt of a little more than a year ago, would ever have recognized this haggard, pallid, wretched-looking Lady Kingsland as the same.
She sat still and alone, gazing out at the dreary desolation of earth and heaven. The great house was still as a tomb; the bustle of the servants' regions was far removed, the gnawing of a mouse behind the black paneling, the soft ticking of the toy clock sounded unnaturally loud.
"Darkening," Harriet thought, looking at the leaden twilight—"darkening, like my life. Not two months a wife, and his love and trust gone forever. May Heaven pity me, for there is none on earth!"
There was a tap at the door. Lady Kingsland had learned to know that soft, light tap.
"Come in," she said; and Sybilla entered.
She did not pause at the closed door as usual; she glided noiselessly across the room and stood beside her. So like a ghost she came, her dead-black garments making no rustle, her footfall making no sound, her white face awfully corpse-like in the spectral light, her black eyes glowing like a cat's in the dark; my lady shrunk in absolute affright.
"Don't come any nearer!" she cried, putting out her hands. "What do you want?"
"I have seen Mr. Parmalee, my lady."
Her tones were the same as usual—respectful. But the gentle voice did not reassure Lady Kingsland.
"Well?" she said, coldly.
"He will be there, my lady. At half past eleven to-night you will find—your mother"—slowly and distinctly—"waiting for you on the terrace down by the shore."
"Half past eleven. Why so very late?"
"My lady, it will not be safe for you to venture out before. You are watched!"
"Watched!" she repeated, haughtily. "Do you mean, Sybilla Silver—"
"I mean, my lady," Miss Silver said, firmly, "Sir Everard has set spies. The Beech Walk is watched by night and by day. Claudine is little better than a tool in the hands of Edwards, the valet, with whom she is in love. She tells everything to Edwards, and Edwards repeats to his master. A quarter past eleven all will be still—the household will have retired—you may venture forth in safety. The night will be dark, the way lonely and dismal; but you know it every inch. On the stone terrace, at half past eleven, you will find—your mother awaiting you. You can talk to her in perfect safety, and for as long as you choose."
"Have you seen her?" she asked.
"At the window of the Blue Belt Inn—yes, my lady. It is very rash for her to expose herself, too, for hers is a face to strike attention at once, if only for the wreck of its beauty, and for its unutterable look of despair. But as she leaves again soon, I dare say nothing will come of it."
"When do they leave?"
"To-night. It appears a friend of Mr. Parmalee is captain of a little vessel down in the harbor, and he sails for Southampton at the turn of the tide—somewhere past midnight. It is a very convenient arrangement for all parties. By the by, Mr. Parmalee told me to remind you, my lady, of the three hundred pounds."
"Mr. Parmalee is impertinent. I need no reminder. Have you anything more to say, Miss Silver?"
"Only this, my lady: the servants' entrance on the south side of the house will be the safest way for you to take, and the nearest. If you dread the long, dark walk, my lady, I will be only too happy to accompany you."
"You are very good. I don't in the least dread it. When I wish you to accompany me anywhere I will say so."
Sybilla bowed, and the darkness hid a sinister smile.
"You have no orders for me, then, my lady?"
"None. Yes, you had better see Claudine, and say I shall not require her services to-night. Inform me when the servants have all retired, and"—a momentary hesitation, but still speaking proudly—"does Sir Everard dine at home this evening?"
"Sir Everard just rode off as I came in, my lady. He dines with Major Morrell and the officers, and will not return until past midnight, very likely. He is always late at those military dinners."
"That will do; you may go."
"Shall I not light the lamp, my lady?"
"No; be good enough to leave me."
Sybilla quitted the room, her white teeth, set together in a viperish clinch.
"How she hates me, and how resolved she is to show it! Very well, my lady. You don't hate me one thousandth part as much as I hate you; and yet my hatred of you is but a drop in the ocean compared to my deadly vengeance against your husband. Go, my haughty Lady Kingsland—go to your tryst—go to your death!"
Left alone, Harriet sat in the deepening darkness for over three hours, never moving—still and motionless as if turned to stone.
The pretty Swiss clock played a waltz preparatory to striking eleven. She sat and listened until the last musical chime died away; then she rose, groped her way to the low, marble chimney-piece, struck a lucifer, and lighted a large lamp.
The brilliant light flooded the room. Sybilla's rap came that same instant softly upon the door.
"My lady."
"I hear," my lady said, not opening it. "What is it?"
"All have retired; the house is as still as the grave. The south door is unfastened; the coast is clear."
"It is well. Good-night."
"Good-night."
She stood a moment listening to the soft rustle of Miss Silver's skirts in the passage, then, slowly and mechanically, she began to prepare for her night's work.
She took a long, shrouding mantle, wrapped it around her, drew the hood over her head, and exchanged her slippers for stout walking shoes. Then she unlocked her writing-case and drew forth a roll of bank-notes, thrust them into her bosom, and stood ready.
But she paused an instant yet. She stood before one of the full-length mirrors, looking at her spectral face, so hollow, so haggard, out of which all the youth and beauty seemed gone.
"And this is what one short month ago he called bright and beautiful—this wasted, sunken-eyed vision. Youth and beauty, love and trust and happiness, home and husband, all lost. Oh, my father, what have you done?"
She gave one dry, tearless sob. The clock struck the quarter past.
The sound aroused her.
"My mother," she said—"let me think I go to meet my mother. Sinful, degraded, an outcast, but still my mother. Let me think of that, and be brave."
She opened her door; the stillness of death reigned. She glided down the corridor, down the sweeping stair-way, the soft carpeting muffling every tread—the dim night-lamps lighting her on her way.
No human sound startled her. All in the house were peacefully asleep—all save that flying figure, and one other wicked watcher. She gained the door in safety. It yielded to her touch. She opened it, and was out alone in the black, gusty night.
Harriet Kingsland's brave heart quailed only for a moment; then she plunged resolutely forward into the gloom. Slipping, stumbling, falling, rising again, the wind beating in her face, the branches catching like angry hands at her garments—still she hurried on. It was a long, long, tortuous path, but it came to an end. The roar of the sea sounded awfully loud as it rose in sullen majesty, the flags of the stone terrace rang under her feet. Panting, breathless, cold as death, she leaned against the iron railing, her hands pressed hard over her tumultuous heart.
It was light here. A fitful midnight moon, pale and feeble, was breaking through a rift in the clouds, and shedding its sickly glimmer over the black earth and raging sea. To her eyes, accustomed to the dense darkness, every object was plainly visible. She strained her gaze over the waves to catch the coming boat she knew was to bear those she had come to meet; she listened breathlessly to every sound. But for a weary while she listened, and watched, and waited in vain. What was that? A footstep crashing through the under-wood near at hand. She turned with a wordless cry of terror. A tall, dark figure emerged from the trees and strode straight toward her. An awful voice spoke:
"I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever came again to meet that man. False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!"
She uttered a long, low cry. She recognized the voice—it was the voice of her husband; she recognized the form—her husband's—towering over her, with a long, gleaming dagger in his hand.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ON THE STONE TERRACE.
When Sybilla Silver parted from Lady Kingsland outside the chamber door, she went straight to her own room, and began her preparations for that night's work.
The flaming red spots, all foreign to her usual complexion, blazed on either cheek-bone; her black eyes shone like the eyes of a tigress crouched in a jungle.
But she never faltered—she never wavered in her deadly purpose. The aim of her whole life was to be fulfilled this night—the manes of her dead kinsfolk to be appeased.
Her first act was to sit down and write a note. It was very brief, illy spelled, vilely written, on a sheet of coarsest paper, and sealed with a big blotch of red wax and the impress of a grimy thumb. This is what Miss Silver wrote:
SUR HEVERARD KINGSLAND:
HONURED SIR:—This is to Say that my Lady is Promised the hamerican
Gent, for to meet him this Night at Midnight on the Stone Terrace,
Which honoured Sir you ought to Know, which is why I write.
Yours too Command, A FRIEND.
"This will do it, I think. Sir Everard will visit the stone terrace to-night before he sleeps. It will be fully eleven, probably half past, before be comes home. He will find this anonymous communication awaiting him. He will fume and stamp and spurn it, but he will go, all the same. And then!"
She sealed the note, directed it in the same atrocious fist to the baronet, and then, rising, proceeded to undress.
But not to go to bed. A large bundle lay on a chair; she opened it, drew forth a full suit of man's attire—an evening suit that the young baronet had worn but a few times, and the very counterpart of that which he wore to-night.
Miss Silver stood before the glass and arrayed herself in these. She was so tall that they fitted her very well, and when her long hair was scientifically twisted up, and a hat of Sir Everard's crushed down upon it, she was as handsome a young fellow as you could see in a long day's search.
That vague and shadowy resemblance to the baronet, which Mr. Parmalee had once noticed, was very palpable and really striking when she threw over all a long riding-cloak which Sir Everard often wore.
"You will do, I think," she said, to her transformed image in the glass. "Even my lady might mistake you for her husband in the uncertain moonlight."
She left the mirror, crossed the room, unlocked a trunk with a key she took out of her bosom, and drew forth a morocco scabbard case. The crest of the Kingslands and the monogram "E. K.," decorated the leather.
Opening this, she drew forth a long, glittering Spanish stiletto, not much thicker than a coarse needle, but strong and glittering and deadly keen.
"Sir Everard has not missed his pretty toy yet," she muttered. "If he had only dreamed, when he saw it first, not a fortnight ago, of the deed it would do this night!"
She closed the trunk, thrust the dagger into its scabbard, the scabbard into her bosom, blew out the lamp, and softly opened the door. All was still as the grave.
She locked her door securely, put the key in her pocket, and stole toward Sir Everard's rooms. Her kid slippers fell light as snow-flakes on the carpet. She opened the baronet's dressing-room door. It had been his sleeping-room, too, of late. His bed stood ready prepared; a lamp burned dimly on the dressing-table. Beside the lamp Miss Silver placed her anonymous letter, then retreated as noiselessly as she had entered, shut the door, and glided stealthily down the corridor, down the stairs, along the passages, and out of the same door which my lady had passed not ten minutes previously.
Swift as a snake, and more deadly of purpose, Sybilla glided along the gloomy avenues of the wood toward the sea-side terrace. Every nerve seemed strung like steel, every fiber of her body quivered to its utmost tension. Her eyes blazed in the dark like the eyes of a wild cat; she looked like a creature possessed of a devil.
She reached the extremity of the woodland path almost as soon as her victim. A moment she paused, glaring upon her with eyes of fiercest hate as she stood there alone and defenseless. The next, she drew out the flashing stiletto. Flung away the scabbard, and advanced with it in her hand and horrible words upon her lips.
"I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever came again to meet that man! False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!"
There was a wild shriek. In that fitful light she never doubted for a moment but that it was her husband.
"Have mercy!" she cried. "I am innocent, Everard! Oh, for God's sake, do not murder me!"
"Wretch—traitoress—die. You are not fit to pollute the earth longer!
Go to your grave with my hate and my curse!"
With a sudden paroxysm of mad fury the dagger was lifted—one fierce hand gripped Harriet's throat. A choking shriek—the dagger fell—a gurgling cry drowned in her throat—a fierce spurt of hot blood—a reel backward and a heavy fall over the low iron railing—down, down on the black shore beneath—and the pallid moonlight gleaming above shone on one figure standing on the stone terrace, alone, with a dagger dripping blood in its hand.
She leaned over the rail. Down below—far down—she could see a slender figure, with long hair blowing in the blast, lying awfully still on the sands. Not five feet off the great waves washed, rising, steadily rising. In five minutes more they would wash the feet of the terrace—that slender figure would lie there no more.
"The fall alone would have killed her. Before I am half-way back to the house those waves will be her shroud."
She wrapped her cloak around her and fled away—back, swift as the wind, into the house, up the stairs. Safe in her own room, she tore off her disguise. The cloak and the trousers were horribly spotted with blood. She made all into one compact package, rolled up the dagger in the bundle, stole back to the baronet's dressing-room and listened, and peeped through the key-hole. He was not there; the room was empty. She went in, thrust the bundle out of sight in the remotest corner of the wardrobe, and hastened back to her chamber. Her letter still lay where she had left it. The baronet bad not yet returned.
In her own room Miss Silver secured the door upon the inside, according to custom, donned her night-dress, and went to bed—to watch and wait.
* * * * *
The mess dinner was a very tedious affair to one guest at least. Major Morrell and the officers told good stories and sung doubtful songs, and passed the wine and grew hilarious; but Sir Everard Kingsland chafed horribly under it all, and longed for the hour of his release.
A dull, aching torture lay at his heart; a chill presentiment of evil had been with him all day; the tortures of love and rage and jealousy had lashed him nearly into madness.
Sometimes love carried all before him, and he would start up to rush to the side of the wife he loved, to clasp her to his heart, and defy earth and Hades to part them. Sometimes anger held the day, and he would pace up and down like a madman, raging at her, at himself, at Parmalee, at all the world.
He was haggard and worn and wild, and his friends stared at him and shrugged their shoulders, and smiled significantly at this outward evidence of post-nuptial bliss.
It was almost midnight when the young baronet mounted Sir Galahad and rode home. Kingsland Court lay dark and still under the frowning night sky. He glanced up at the window of his wife's chamber. A light burned there. A longing, wistful look filled his blue eyes, his arms stretched out involuntarily, his heart gave a great plunge, as though it would break away and fly to its idol.
"My darling!" he murmured, passionately—"my darling, my life, my love, my wife! Oh, my God to think, I should love her, wildly, madly still, believing her—knowing her to be false!"
He went up to his dressing-room, his heart full to bursting. A mad, insane longing to go to her, to fold her to his breast, to forgive her all, to take her, guilty or innocent, and let pride and honor go to the winds, was upon him. He loved her so intensely, so passionately, that life without her, apart from her, was hourly increasing torture.
The sight of a folded note lying on the table alone arrested his excited steps. He took it up, looked at the strange superscription, tore it open, ran over its diabolical contents, and reeled as if struck a blow.
"Great Heaven! it is not true! it can not be true! it is a vile, accursed slander! My wife meet this man alone, and at midnight, in that forsaken spot! Oh, it is impossible! May curses light upon the slanderous coward who dared to write this infernal lie!"
He flung it, in a paroxysm of mad fury, into the fire. A flash of flame, and Sybilla Silver's artfully written note was forever gone. He started up in white fury.
"I will go to her room; I will see for myself! I will find her safely asleep, I know!"
But a horrible misgiving filled him, even while he uttered the brave words. He dashed out of his room and into his wife's. It was deserted. He entered the bedroom. She was not there; the bed had not been slept in. He passed to her boudoir; that, too, was vacant.
Sir Everard seized the bell-rope and rang a peal that resounded with unearthly echoes through the sleeping house. Five minutes of mad impatience—ten; then Claudine, scared and shivering, appeared.
"Where is your mistress?"
"Mon Dieu! how should I know? Is not my lady in bed?"
"No; her bed has not been slept in to-night. She is in none of her rooms. When did you see her last?"
"About ten o'clock. She dismissed me for the night; she said she would undress herself."
"Where is Miss Silver?"
"In bed, I think, monsieur."
"Go to her—tell her I want to see her at once. Lose no time."
Claudine disappeared. Miss Silver was so very soundly asleep that it required five minutes rapping to rouse her. Once aroused, however, she threw on a dressing-gown, thrust her feet into slippers, and appeared before the baronet, with a pale, anxious, inquiring face.
"Where is my wife? Where is Lady Kingsland?"
"Good Heaven! is she not here?"
"No. You know where she is! Tell me, I command you!"
Sybilla Silver covered her face with both hands, and cowered before him with every sign of guilt.
"Spare me!" she cried, faintly. "I dare not tell you!"
He made one stride forward, caught her by the arm, his eyes glaring like the eyes of a tiger.
"Speak!" he thundered; "or by the Heaven above us, I'll tear it from your throat! Is she with him?"
"She is," cowering, shrinking, trembling.
"Where?"
"On the stone terrace."
"How do you know?"
"He returned this afternoon; he sent for me; he told me to tell her to meet him there to-night, about midnight. She did not think you would return before two or three—— Oh, for pity's sake——"
"I'll have their hearts' blood!" he thundered, with an awful oath.
The horrible voice, the horrible oath, was like nothing earthly. The two women cowered down, too intensely frightened even to scream. One other listener recoiled in wordless horror. It was Edwards, the valet.
The madman, goaded to insane fury, had rushed out of the hall—out of the house. The trio looked at each other with bloodless faces and dilated eyes of terror.
Edwards was the first to find his paralyzed tongue:
"May the Lord have mercy upon us! There'll be murder done this night!"
The two women never spoke. Huddled together, they clung to Edwards, as women do cling to men in their hour of fear.
Half an hour passed; they never moved nor stirred.
Ten minutes more, and Sir Everard dashed in among them as he had dashed out.
"It is false!" he shouted—"a false, devilish slander! She is not there!"
A shriek from Claudine—a wild, wild shriek. With starting eyes she was pointing to the baronet's hands.
All looked and echoed that horror-struck cry. They were literally dripping blood!
CHAPTER XXIX.
BRANDED.
The baronet lifted his hands to the light, and gazed at their crimson hue with wild, dilated eyes and ghastly face.
"Blood!" he said, in an awful whisper—"blood—Good God, it is hers!
She is murdered!"
The three listeners recoiled still further, paralyzed at the sight, at the words, at the awful thought that a murderer, red-handed, stood before them.
"A horrible deed has been done this night!" he cried, in a voice that rang down the long hall like a bugle blast. "A murder has been committed! Rouse the house, fetch lights, and follow me!"
Edwards rose up, trembling in every limb.
"Quick!" his master thundered. "Is this a time to stand agape?
Sybilla, sound the alarm! Let all rise and join in the search."
In a moment all was confusion. Claudine, of a highly excitable temperament, no sooner recovered from her stupor of dismay, then, with a piercing shriek, she fainted and tumbled over in a heap.
But no one heeded her. Bells rang, lights flashed, servants, white and wild, rushed to and fro, and over all the voice of the master rang, giving his orders.
"Lights, lights!" he shouted. "Men, why do you linger and stare?
Lights! and follow me to the stone terrace."
He led the way. There was a general rush from the house. The men bore lanterns; the women clung to the men, terror and curiosity struggling, but curiosity getting the better of it. In dead silence all made their way to the stone terrace—all but one.
Sybilla Silver saw them depart, stood a moment, irresolute, then turned and sped away to Sir Everard's dressing-room. She drew the compact bundle of clothes from their corner, removed the dagger, tied up the bundle again with the weight inside, and hurriedly left the house.
"These blood-stained garments are not needed to fix the guilt upon him," she said to herself: "that is done already. The appearance of these would only create confusion and perplexity—perhaps help his cause. I'll destroy these and fling away the dagger in the wood. They'll he sure to find it in a day or two. They will make such a search that if a needle were lost it would be found."
There was an old sunken well, half filled with slimy, green water, mud, and filth, in a remote end of the plantation. Thither, unobserved, Sybilla made her way in the ghostly moonlight and flung her blood-stained bundle into its vile, poisonous depths.
"Lie there!" she muttered. "You have done your work, and I fling you away, as I fling away all my tools at my pleasure. There, in the green muck and slimy filth, you will tell no tales."
She hurried away and struck into a path leading to the stone terrace. She could see the lanterns flashing like firefly sparks; she could hear the clear voice of Sir Everard Kingsland commanding. All at once the lights were still, there was a deep exclamation in the baronet's voice, a wild chorus of feminine screams, then blank silence.
Sybilla Silver threw the dagger, with a quick, fierce gesture, into the wood, and sprung in among them with glistening, greedy black eyes. They stood in a semicircle, in horror-struck silence, on the terrace. The light of half a dozen lanterns streamed redly on the stone flooring, but redder than that lurid light, a great pool of blood lay gory before them. The iron railing, painted creamy white, was all clotted with jets of blood, and clinging to a projecting knob, something fluttered in the bleak blast, but they did not see it. All eyes were riveted on the awful sight before them—every tongue was paralyzed. Edwards, the valet, was the first to break the dreadful silence.
"My master!" he cried, shrilly; "he will fall!"
He dropped his lantern and sprung forward just in time and no more. The young baronet reeled and fell heavily backward. The sight of that blood—the life-blood of his bride—seemed to freeze the very heart in his body. With a low moan he lay in his servant's arms like a dead man.
"He has fainted," said the voice of Sybilla Silver. "Lift him up and carry him to the house."
"Wait!" cried some one. "What is this?"
He tore the fluttering garment off the projection and held it up to the light.
"My lady's Injy scarf!"
No one knew who spoke—all recognized it. It was a little Cashmere shawl Lady Kingsland often wore. Another thrilling silence followed; then—
"The Lord be merciful!" gasped a house-maid. "She's been murdered, and we in our beds!"
Sybilla Silver, leaning lightly against the railing, turned authoritatively to Edwards:
"Take your master to his room, Edwards. It is no use of lingering here now; we must wait until morning. Some awful deed has been done, but it may not be my lady murdered."
"How comes her shawl there, then?" asked the old butler. "Why can't she be found in the house?"
"I don't know. It is frightfully mysterious, but nothing more can be done to-night."
"Can't there?" said the butler. "Jackson and Fletcher will go to the village and get the police and search every inch of the park before daylight. The murderer can't be far away."
"Probably not, Mr. Norris. Do as you please about the police, only if you ever wish your master to recover from that death-like swoon, you will carry him at once to the house and apply restoratives."
She turned away with her loftiest air of hauteur, and Miss Silver had always been haughty to the servants. More than one dark glance followed her now.
"You're a hard one, you are, if there ever was a hard one!" said the butler. "There's been no luck in the house since you first set foot in it."
"She always hated my lady," chimed in a female. "It's my opinion she'll be more glad than sorry if she is made away with. She wanted Sir Everard for herself."
"Hold your tongue, Susan!" angrily cried Edwards. "You daren't call your soul your own if Miss Silver was listening. Bear a hand here, you fellers, and help me fetch Sir Heverard to the house."
They bore the insensible man to the house, to his room, where Edwards applied himself to his recovery. Sybilla aided him silently, skillfully. Meantime, the two gigantic footmen were galloping like mad to the village to rouse the stagnant authorities with their awful news. And the servants remained huddled together, whispering in affright; then, in a body, proceeded to search the house from attic to cellar.
"My lady may be somewhere in the house," somebody had suggested. "Who knows? Let us try."
So they tried, and utterly failed, of course.
Morning came at last. Dull and dreary it came, drenched in rain, the wind wailing desolately over the dark, complaining sea. All was confusion, not only at the Court, but throughout the whole village. The terrible news had flown like wild-fire, electrifying all. My lady was murdered! Who had done the deed?
Very early in the wet and dismal morning, Miss Silver, braving the elements, wended her way to the Blue Bell Inn.
Where was Mr. Parmalee? Gone, the landlady said, and gone for good, nobody knew where.
Sybilla stood and stared at her incredulously. Gone, and without a word to her—gone without seeing the murdered woman! What did it mean?
"Are you sure he has really gone?" she asked. "And how did he go?"
"Sure as sure!" was the landlady's response; "which he paid his bill to the last farthing, like a gentleman. And as for how he went, I am sure I can't say, not being took in his confidence; but the elderly party, she went with him, and it was late last evening."
Miss Silver was nonplused, perplexed, bewildered, and very anxious. What did Mr. Parmalee mean? Where had he gone? He might spoil all yet. She had come to see him, and accuse him of the murder—to frighten him, and make him fly the village. Circumstances were strongly against him—his knowledge of her secret; his nocturnal appointment; her disappearance. Sybilla did not doubt but that he would consider discretion the better part of valor, and fly.
She went back to the house, intensely perplexed. There the confusion was at its height. The scabbard had been found near the terrace, with the baronet's initials thereon.
Men looked into each other's blank faces, afraid to speak the frightful thoughts that filled their minds.
And in his room Sir Everard lay in a deep stupor—it was not sleep. Sybilla, upon the first faint signs of consciousness, had administered a powerful opiate.
"He must sleep," she said, resolutely, to Edwards. "It may save his life and his reason. He is utterly worn out, and every nerve in his body is strung to its utmost tension. Let him sleep, poor fellow!"
He lay before her so death-like, so ghastly, so haggard, that the stoniest enemy might have relented—the pallid shadow of the handsome, happy bridegroom of two short months ago.
"I have kept my oath," she thought. "I have wreaked the vengeance I have sworn. If I left him forever now, the manes of Zenith the gypsy might rest appeased. But the astrologer's prediction—ah! the work must go on to the appalling end."
Early in the afternoon arrived Lady Kingsland and Mildred, in a frightful state of excitement and horror. Harriet murdered! The tragic story had been whispered through The Grange until it reached their ears, thrilling them to the core of their hearts with terror.
Miss Silver met them—calm, grave, inscrutable.
"I am afraid it is true," she said, "awfully incredible as it seems. Sir Everard fainted stone-dead, my lady, at sight Of the blood upon the terrace."
"Great heavens! it is horrible! That unfortunate girl. And my son,
Sybilla, where is he?"
"Asleep in his room, my lady. I administered an opiate. His very life, I think, depended on it. He will not awake for some hours. Do not disturb him. Will you come up to your old rooms and remove your things?"
They followed her. They had come to stay until the suspense was ended—to take care of the son and brother.
Lady Kingsland wrung her hands in a paroxysm of mortal anguish in the solitude of her own room.
"Oh, my God!" she cried, "have mercy and spare! My son, my son, my son! Would God I might die to save you from the worse horrors to come!"
All that day, all the next, and the next, and the next, the fruitless search for the murdered bride was made. All in vain; not the faintest trace was to be obtained.
Mr. Parmalee was searched for high and low. Immense rewards were offered for the slightest trace of him—immense rewards were offered for the body of the murdered woman. In vain, in vain!
Had the earth opened and swallowed them up, Mr. Parmalee and the baronet's lost bride could not more completely have vanished.
And, meanwhile, dark, ominous whispers rose and circulated from mouth to mouth, by whom originated no one knew. Sir Everard's frantic jealousy of Mr. Parmalee, his onslaught in the picture-gallery, the threats he had used again and again, overheard by so many, the oath he had sworn to take her life if she ever met the American artist again, his ominous conduct that night, his rushing like a madman to the place of tryst, his returning covered with blood—white, wild, like one insane. Then the finding of the scabbard, marked with his initials, and his own words:
"Blood! Good God! it is hers! She is murdered!"
The whispers rose and grew louder and louder; men looked in dark suspicion upon the young lord of Kingsland, and shrunk from him palpably. But as yet no one was found to openly accuse him.
Toward the close of the second week, a body was washed ashore, some miles down the coast, and the authorities there signified to the authorities of Worrel that the corpse might be the missing lady.
Sir Everard, his mother, and Miss Silver went at once. But the sight was too horrible to be twice looked at.
The height corresponded, and so did the long waves of flowing hair, and Sybilla Silver, the only one with nerve enough to glance again, pronounced it emphatically to be the body of Harriet, Lady Kingsland.
There was to be a verdict, and the trio remained; and before it commenced, the celebrated detective from Scotland Yard, employed from the first by Sir Everard, appeared upon the scene with crushing news. He held up a blood-stained dagger before the eye of the baronet:
"Do you know this little weapon, Sir Everard?"
Sir Everard looked at it and recognized it at once.
"It is mine," he replied. "I purchased it last year in Paris. My initials are upon it."
"So I see," was the dry response.
"How comes it here? Where did you find it?"
The detective eyed him narrowly, almost amazed at his coolness.
"I found it in a very queer place, Sir Everard—lodged in the branches of an elm-tree, not far from the stone terrace. It's a miracle it was ever found. I think this little weapon did the deed. I'll go and have a look at the body."
He went. Yes, there in the region of the heart was a gaping wound.
The inquest came on; the facts came out—mysteriously whispered before, spoken aloud now. And for the first time the truth dawned on the stunned baronet—he was suspected of the murder of the wife he loved!
The revolting atrocity, the unnatural horror of the charge, nerved him as nothing else could have done. His pale, proud face grew rigid as stone; his blue eyes flashed scornful defiance; his head reared itself haughtily aloft. How dare they accuse him of so monstrous a crime?
But the circumstantial evidence was crushing. Sybilla Silver's evidence alone would have damned him.
She gave it with evident reluctance; but give it she did with frightful force, and the bereaved young husband stood stunned at the terrible strength of the case she made out.
Everything told against him. His very eagerness to find the murderer seemed but throwing dust in their eyes. Not a doubt lingered in the minds of the coroner or his jury, and before sunset that day Sir Everard Kingsland was on his way to Worrel Jail to stand his trial at the coming assizes for the willful murder of Harriet, his wife.
CHAPTER XXX.
MISS SILVER ON OATH.
The day of trial came. Long, miserable weeks of waiting—weeks of anguish and remorse and despair had gone before, and Sir Everard Kingsland emerged from his cell to take his place in the criminal dock and be tried for his life for the greatest crime man can commit.
The court-house was crowded to suffocation—there was not even standing room. The long gallery was one living semicircle of eyes; ladies, in gleaming silks and fluttering plumes, thronged as to the opera, and slender throats were craned, and bright eyes glanced eagerly to catch one fleeting glimpse of the pale prisoner—a baronet who had murdered his bride before the honey-moon was well over.
The case was opened in a long and eloquent speech by the counsel for the crown, setting forth the enormity of the crime, citing a hundred incidents of the horrible and unnatural deeds jealousy had made men commit, from the days of the first murderer.
His address was listened to in profoundest silence. The charge he made out was a terribly strong one, and when he sat down and the first witness was called the hearts of Sir Everard Kingsland's friends sunk like lead.
He pleaded "Not guilty!" with an eye that flashed and a voice which rang, and a look in his pale, proud face that no murderer's face ever wore on this earth, and with those two words he had carried conviction to many a doubter.
"Call Sybilla Silver."
All in black—in trailing crape and sables, tall, stately, and dignified as a young duchess—Sybilla Silver obeyed the call.
She was deeply veiled at first, and when she threw back the heavy black veil, and the dark, bright, beautiful face looked full at judge and jury, a low murmur thrilled through the throng.
Those who saw her for the first time stared in wonder and admiration at the tall young woman in black, with the face and air of an Indian queen, and those to whom she was known thought that Miss Silver had never, since they saw her first, looked half as handsome as she did this day.
Her brilliant bloom of color was gone; she was interestingly pale, and her great black eyes were unnaturally deep and mournful.
"Your name is Sybilla Silver, and you reside at Kingsland Court. May we ask in what character—as friend or domestic?"
"As both. Sir Everard Kingsland has been my friend and benefactor from the first. I have been treated as a confidential friend both by him and his mother."
"By the deceased Lady Kingsland also, I conclude?"
"I was in the late Lady Kingsland's confidence—yes."
"You were the last who saw her alive on the night of March tenth—the night of the murder?"
"I was."
"Where did you part from her?"
"At her own chamber door. We bade each other good-night, and I retired to rest immediately."
"What hour was that?"
"About ten minutes before eleven."
"What communication were you making to Lady Kingsland at that hour?"
"I came to tell her the household had all retired—that she could quit the house unobserved whenever she chose."
"You knew, then, that she had an assignation for that night?"
"I did. It was I who brought her the message. She was to meet Mr.
Parmalee at midnight, on the stone terrace."
"Who was this Mr. Parmalee?"
"An American gentleman—a traveling photographic artist, between whom and my lady a secret existed."
"A secret unknown to her husband?"
"Yes."
"And this secret was the cause of their mysterious midnight meeting?"
"It was. Mr. Parmalee dare not come to the house. Sir Everard had driven him forth with blows and abuse, and forbidden him to enter the grounds. My lady knew this, and was forced to meet him by stealth."
"Where was Sir Everard on this night?"
"At a military dinner given by Major Morrell, here in Worrel."
"What time did he return to Kingsland Court?"
"At half past eleven, as nearly as I can judge. I did not see him for some ten or fifteen minutes after; then Claudine, my lady's maid, came and aroused me—said Sir Everard was in my lady's dressing-room and wished to see me at once."
"You went?"
"I went immediately. I found Sir Everard in a state of passionate fury no words can describe. By some means he had learned of the assignation; through an anonymous note left upon his dressing-table, he said."
"Did you see this note?"
"I did not. He had none in his hand, nor have I seen any since."
"What did the prisoner say to you?"
"He asked me where was his wife—he insisted that I knew. He demanded an answer in such a way I dared not disobey."
"You told him?"
"I did. 'Is she with him?' he said, grasping my arm, and I answered,
'Yes.'"
"And then?"
"He asked me, 'Where?' and I told him; and he flung me from him, like a madman, and rushed out of the house, swearing, in an awful voice, 'I'll have their hearts' blood!'"
"Was it the first time you ever heard him threaten his wife's life?"
"No; the second. Once before I heard him say to her, at the close of a dreadful quarrel, 'If ever you meet that man again, I'll murder you, by the living Lord!'"
"What was the cause of the quarrel?"
"She had met Mr. Parmalee, by night and by stealth, in Sir Everard's absence, in the Beech Walk."
"And he discovered it?"
"He did. Edwards, his valet, had gone out with me to look for some article I had lost, and by chance we came upon them. We saw her give him money; we saw her dreadfully frightened; and when Edwards met his master again his face betrayed him—we had to tell him all."
"Did any one hear the prisoner use those words, 'I'll have their hearts' blood!' on the night of the murder, but yourself?"
"Yes; Edwards, his valet, and Claudine, the lady's maid. We crouched together in the hall, frightened almost to death."
"When did the prisoner reappear?"
"In little over half an hour. He rushed in in the same wild way he had rushed out—like a man gone mad."
"What did he say?"
"He shouted, 'It is false—a false, devilish slander! She is not there!'"
"Well—and then?"
"And then Claudine shrieked aloud and pointed to his hands. They were dripping with blood!"
"Did he attempt any explanation?"
"Not then. His first words were, as if he spoke in spite of himself:
'Blood! blood! Good God, it is hers! She is murdered!'"
"You say he offered no explanation then. Did he afterward?"
"I believe so. Not to me, but to others. He said his foot slipped on the stone terrace, and his hand splashed in a pool of something—his wife's blood."
"Can you relate what followed?"
"There was the wildest confusion. Claudine fainted. Sir Everard shouted for lights and men. 'There has been a horrible murder done,' he said. 'Fetch lights and follow me!' and then we all rushed to the stone terrace."
"And there you saw—what?"
"Nothing but blood. It was stained and clotted with blood everywhere; and so was the railing, as though a bleeding body had been cast over into the sea. On a projecting spike, as though torn off in the fall, we found my lady's India scarf."
"You think, then, he cast the body over after the deed was done?"
"I am morally certain he did. There was no other way of disposing of it. The tide was at flood, the current strong, and it was swept away at once."
"What was the prisoner's conduct on the terrace?"
"He fainted stone-dead before he was there five minutes. They had to carry him lifeless to the house."
"Was it not on that occasion the scabbard marked with his initials was discovered?"
"It was. One of the men picked it up. The dagger hidden in the elm-tree was found by the detective later."
"You recognized them both? You had seen them before in the possession of the prisoner?"
"Often. He brought the dagger from Paris. It used to lie on his dressing-table."
"Where he said he found the anonymous note?"
"Yes."
"Now Miss Silver," said the prosecuting attorney, "from what you said at the inquest and from what you have let drop to-day, I infer that my lady's secret was no secret to you. Am I right?"
There was a momentary hesitation—a rising: flush, a drooping of the brilliant eyes, then Miss Silver replied:
"Yes."
"How did you learn it?"
"Mr. Parmalee himself told me."
"You were Mr. Parmalee's intimate friend, then, it appears?"
"Y-e-e-s."
"Was he only a friend? He was a young man, and an unmarried one, as I am given to understand, and you, Miss Silver, are—pardon my boldness—a very handsome young lady."
Miss Silver's handsome face drooped lower. She made no reply.
"Answer, if you please," blandly insinuated the lawyer. "You have given your evidence hitherto with most unfeminine and admirable straightforwardness. Don't let us have a hitch now. Was this Mr. Parmalee a suitor of yours?"
"He was."
"An accepted one, I take it?"
"Y-e-e-s."
"And you know nothing now of his whereabouts? That is strange."
"It is strange, but no less true than strange. I have never seen or heard of Mr. Parmalee since the afternoon preceding that fatal night."
"How did you see him then?"
"He had been up to London for a couple of days on business connected with my lady; he had returned that afternoon with another person; he sent for me to inform my lady. I met and spoke to him on the street, just beyond the Blue Bell Inn."
"What had he to say to you?"
"Very little. He told me to tell my lady to meet him precisely at midnight, on the stone terrace. Before midnight the murder was done. What became of him, why he did not keep his appointment, I do not know. He left the inn very late, paid his score, and has never been seen or heard of since.
"Had he any interest in Lady Kingsland's death?"
"On the contrary, all his interest lay in her remaining alive. While she lived, he held a secret which she intended to pay him well to keep. Her death blights all his pecuniary prospects, and Mr. Parmalee loved money."
"Miss Silver, who was the female who accompanied Mr. Parmalee from London, and who quitted the Blue Bell Inn with him late on the night of the tenth?"
Again Sybilla hesitated, looked down, and seemed confused.
"It is not necessary, is it?" said she, pleadingly. "I had rather not tell. It—it is connected with the secret, and I am bound by a promise——"
"Which I think we must persuade you to break," interrupted the debonair attorney. "I think this secret will throw a light on the matter, and we must have it. Extreme cases require extreme measures, my dear young lady. Throw aside your honorable scruples, break your promise, and tell us this secret which has caused a murder."
Sybilla Silver looked from judge to jury, from counsel to counsel, and clasped her hands.
"Don't ask me!" she cried—"oh, pray, don't ask me to tell this!"
"But we must—it is essential—we must have it, Miss Silver. Come, take courage. It can do no harm now, you know—the poor lady is dead. And first—to plunge into the heart of it at once—tell us who was the mysterious lady with Mr. Parmalee?"
The hour of Sybilla's triumph had come. She lifted her black eyes, glittering with livid flame, and shot a quick, sidelong glance at the prisoner. Awfully white, awfully calm, he sat like a man of stone, awaiting to hear what would cost him his life.
"Who was she?" the lawyer repeated.
Sybilla turned toward him and answered, in a voice plainly audible the length and breadth of the, long room:
"She called herself Mrs. Denover. Mr. Parmalee called her his sister.
Both were false. She was Captain Harold Hunsden's divorced wife, Lady
Kingsland's mother, and a lost, degraded outcast!"
CHAPTER XXXI.
FOUND GUILTY.
There was the silence of death. Men looked blankly in each other's faces, then at the prisoner. With an awfully corpse-like face, and wild, dilated eyes, he sat staring at the witness—struck dumb.
The silence was broken by the lawyer.
"This is a very extraordinary statement, Miss Silver," he said. "Are you quite certain of its truth? It is an understood thing that the late Captain Hunsden was a widower."
"He was nothing of the sort. It suited his purpose to be thought so. Captain Hunsden was a very proud man. It is scarcely likely he would announce his bitter shame to the world."
"And his daughter was cognizant of these facts?"
"Only from the night of her father's death. On that night he revealed to her the truth, under a solemn oath of secrecy. Previous to that she had believed her mother dead. That death-bed oath was the cause of all the trouble between Sir Everard and his wife. Lady Kingsland would have died rather than break it."
She glanced again—swift, keen, sidelong, a glance of diabolical triumph—at the prisoner. But he did not see it, he only heard the words—the words that seemed burning to the core of his heart.
This, then, was the secret, and the wife he had loved and doubted and scorned had been true to him as truth itself; and now he knew her worth and purity and high honor when it was too late.
"How came Mr. Parmalee to be possessed of the secret? Was he a relative?"
"No. He learned the story by the merest accident. He left New York for England in his professional capacity as photographic artist, on speculation. On board the steamer was a woman—a steerage passenger—poor, ill, friendless, and alone. He had a kindly heart, it appears, under his passion for money-making, and when this woman—this Mrs. Denover—fell ill, he nursed her as a son might. One night, when she thought herself dying, she called him to her bedside and told him her story."
Clear and sweet Sybilla Silver's voice rang from end to end, each word cutting mercilessly through the unhappy prisoner's very soul.
"Her maiden name had been Maria Denover, and she was a native of New York City. At the age of eighteen an English officer met her while on a visit to Niagara, fell desperately in love with her, and married her out of hand.
"Even at that early age she was utterly lost and abandoned; and she only married Captain Hunsden in a fit of mad desperation and rage because John Thorndyke, her lover, scornfully refused to make her his wife.
"Captain Hunsden took her with him to Gibraltar, where his regiment was stationed, serenely unconscious of his terrible disgrace. One year after a daughter was born, but neither husband nor child could win this woman from the man she passionately loved.
"She urged her husband to take her back to New York to see her friends; she pleaded with a vehemence he could not resist, and in an evil hour he obeyed.
"Again she met her lover. Three weeks after the wronged husband and all the world knew the revolting story of her degradation. She had fled with Thorndyke."
Sybilla paused to let her words take effect. Then she slowly went on:
"There was a divorce, of course; the matter was hushed up as much as possible; Captain Hunsden went back to his regiment a broken-hearted man.
"Two years after he sailed for England, but not to remain. How he wandered over the world, his daughter accompanying him, from that time until he returned to Hunsden Hall, every one knows. But during all that time he never heard one word of or from his lost wife.
"She remained with Thorndyke—half starved, brutally beaten, horribly ill-used—taunted from the first by him, and hated at the last. But she clung to him through all, as women do cling; she had given up the whole world for his sake; she must bear his abuse to the end. And she did, heroically.
"He died—stabbed in a drunken brawl—died with her kneeling by his side, and his last word an oath. He died and was buried, and she was alone in the world as miserable a woman as the wide earth ever held.
"One wish alone was strong within her—to look again upon her child before she died. She had no wish to speak to her, to reveal herself, only to look once more upon her face, then lie down by the road-side and die.
"She knew she was married and living here; Thorndyke had maliciously kept her au fait of her husband and child. She sold all she possessed but the rags upon her back, and took a steerage passage for England.
"That was the story she told Mr. Parmalee. 'You will go to Devonshire,' she said to him; 'you will see my child. Tell her I died humbly praying her forgiveness. She is rich; she will reward you.'
"Mr. Parmalee immediately made up his mind that this sick woman, who had a daughter the wife of a wealthy baronet, was a great deal too valuable, in a pecuniary light, to be allowed 'to go off the hooks,' as he expressed it, thus easily.
"He pooh-poohed the notion of her dying, cheered her up, nursed her assiduously, and finally brought her around. He left her in London, posted down here, and remained here until the return of Sir Everard and my lady from their honey-moon trip. The day after he presented himself to them—displayed his pictures, and among others showed my lady her mother's portrait, taken at the time of her marriage. She recognized it at once—her father had left her its counterpart on the night he died. He knew her secret, and she had to meet him if he chose. He threatened to tell Sir Everard else, and the thought of her husband ever discovering her mother's shame was agony to her. She knew how proud he was, how proud his mother was, and she would have died to save him pain. And that is why she met Mr. Parmalee by night and by stealth—why she gave him money—why all the horrors that have followed occurred."
Once more the cruel, clear, unfaltering voice paused. A groan broke the silence—a groan of such unutterable anguish and despair from the tortured husband that every heart thrilled to hear it.
With that agonized groan, his face dropped in his hands, and he never raised it again. He heard no more—he sat bowed, paralyzed, crushed with misery and remorse. His wife—his lost wife—had been as pure and stainless as the angels, and he—oh, pitiful God! how merciless he had been!
Sybilla Silver was dismissed; other witnesses were called. Edwards and Claudine were the only ones examined that day, Sybilla had occupied the court so long. They corroborated all she had said. The prisoner was remanded, and the court adjourned.
The night of agony which followed to the wretched prisoner no words can ever tell. All he had suffered hitherto seemed as nothing. Men recoiled in horror at the sight of him next day; it was as if a galvanized corpse had entered the court-room.
He sat in dumb misery, neither heeding nor hearing. Only once was his attention dimly aroused. It was at the evidence of a boy—a ragged youth of some fifteen years, who gave his name as Bob Dawson.
"He had been out late on that 'ere night. It was between ten and eleven that he was a-dodgin' round near the stone terrace. Then he sees a lady a-waitin', which the moon was shining on her face, and he knowed my lady herself. He dodged more than hever at the sight, and peeked round a tree. Just then came along a tall gent in a cloak, like Sir Everard wears, and my lady screeches out at sight of him. Sir Everard, he spoke in a deep, 'orrid voice, and the words were so hawful, he—Bob Dawson—remembered them from that day to this.
"'I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever met that man again. False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!'
"And then my lady screeches out again and says to him—she says:
"'Have mercy! I am innocent, Heverard! Oh, for God's sake, do not murder me!'
"And Sir Heverard, he says, fierce and 'orrid:
"'Wretch, die! You are not fit to pollute the hearth! Go to your grave with my 'ate and my cuss!'
"And then," cried Bob Dawson, trembling all over as he told it, "I see him lift that there knife, gentlemen, and stab her with all his might, and she fell back with a sort of groan, and he lifts her up and pitches of her over hinto the sea. And then he cuts, he does, and I—I was frightened most hawful, and I cut, too."
"Why did you not tell this before?" the judge asked.
"'Cos I was scared—I was," Bob replied, in tears. "I didn't know but that they might took and hang me for seeing it. I told mammy the other night, and mammy she came and told the gent there," pointing one finger at the counsel for the crown, "and he said I must come and tell it here; and that's all I've got to tell, and I'm werry sorry as hever I seed it, and it's all true, s'help me!"
Sybilla Silver's eyes fairly blazed with triumphant fire. Her master, the arch-fiend, seemed visibly coming to her aid; and the most miserable baronet pressed his hand to his throbbing head.
There was the summing up of the evidence—one damning mass against the prisoner. There was the judge's charge to the jury. Sir Everard heard no words—saw nothing. He fell into a stunned stupor that was indeed like madness.
The jury retired—vaguely he saw them go. They returned. Was it minutes or hours they had been gone? His dulled eyes looked at them expressionless.
"How say you, gentlemen of the jury—guilty or not guilty?"
"Guilty!"
Amid dead silence the word fell. Every heart thrilled with awe but one. The condemned man sat staring at them with an awful, dull, glazed stare.
The judge arose and put on his black cap, his face white, his lips trembling.
Only the last words seemed to strike him—to crash into his whirling brain with a noise like thunder.
"And that there you be hanged by the neck until dead, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"
He sat down. The awful silence was something indescribable. One or two women in the gallery fainted, then the hush was broken in a blood-curdling manner.