"Perhaps it is best you should see him. Poor Luiz! How can I break the awful truth to you? Your betrothed—the man you loved—is dead— murdered by a cowardly hand on his way home from your father's palace!"
Lianor grew deathly pale.
"Dead!" she repeated, clasping her hands despairingly to her throbbing brow. "It cannot be true! My darling dead—murdered!"
"My poor child, it is only too true! This morning he was found, and brought home, stabbed through the heart!"
"But who could have done it?" Savitre asked in a low, hushed whisper.
"I wish I knew. But, alas! that is a mystery!"
Lianor gazed helplessly from one to the other, then, breaking from her friend's gentle hold, staggered forward.
"Where are you going, Lianor?" Diniz asked, anxiously.
"To him. I must see for myself the terrible truth."
"Can you bear it?"