“What is this?” he repeated, and the stern, passionate voice rang through the room.
He seized her hand and held it in his grasp.
“Hermione,” he whispered, in a strange, terrible voice, “do you know what this is—this hidden instrument of crime—this blood-stained dagger, once a toy for ladies’ fingers—this mute witness of an awful deed? Do you know what it is? It is the dagger that slew Clarice Alden!”
She sank on her knees with a low moan and covered her face with her hands.
“I was always sure,” he continued, “that the dagger would lead to the discovery of the crime. Here is the instrument. Who did the deed?”
His voice sank from its passionate earnestness to a tone of horror and dread. She only moaned aloud, and he heard the word, “Mercy!”
“No,” he said, sternly; “there is no mercy! Lady Alden, your husband murdered Clarice!”
She gave one little cry, more piteous in its agony than any words.
“Your husband, Sir Ronald Alden, who never loved her, murdered my darling, and he killed her that he might marry you!”
No answer, no sound to break the terrible silence, save the song of the birds and the murmur of the western wind; no sound save one, and that was the most pitiful of all—the sobbing of a strong man, for Kenelm Eyrle had bent his head over that mute witness of terrible murder and wept aloud.