“Ah!” laughed the colonel; “there is no accounting for tastes. Those ancient Grecian ladies must have been fine-spirited dames. I should not like to say that the pretty dagger Lady Hermione admired had been used as an instrument of vengeance.”
Mr. Eyrle rose hastily from his seat. He could not have borne another word. Colonel Hurdlestone thought him strange and abrupt, then excused him by remembering that for some years the master of The Towers had been quite unlike his original self.
He rode home through the dewy forest. The stars were beginning to shine; their pale, holy light brought peace and serene calm, but not for him. There was to be no more peace for him. He could no longer doubt. She was guilty; she must be guilty; she owned herself so, and here was a corroboration of her story. He wished wearily that his life had been different—that he had lived in other lands, at other times—anything rather than to be who and what he was. He doubted even his own nerve and courage—whether he would pursue this matter even to the bitter end. Then he remembered his oath. Come what might, he must be true to that. His heart ached with intense pity for her, despite the deed that she had done.
“How she loves Ronald,” he said to himself, thinking of the light upon her face when she remembered his name. “How she loves him. I never saw one life so completely bound in another. What will he say or think when he hears this awful news?”
It seemed to him that he suffered quite as much as he had done when Clarice died. In his quiet, brotherly way he had loved Lady Hermione very dearly; he had loved her piquant, graceful, gentle manner, her varied charms of mind. Even while he loved Clarice best, he paid all homage to Lady Hermione’s tender, earnest, poetical mind. He had always considered her capable of anything grand and heroic. Now, it seemed her heroism had ended in murder. The thought lashed him like a thousand furies. He found himself pitying the living lady more than her dead victim. He found himself making excuses for her, saying to himself: “How much she must have suffered—what agonies of love and jealousy—before she brought herself to the frenzy that ended in murder.”
The beauty and serenity of the summer night brought no calm to his wearied spirits. His head ached with the whirl of his thoughts, his brain burned. He could not refrain from thinking, if he suffered thus, what was not Lady Hermione enduring?
It was morning before he fell asleep; then it was only to dream troubled dreams, full of vague horror for which he had no name. He was aroused by a visit from Lord Lorriston, who sent to ask him if he would come down at once, as he wished to see him on most important business. He had hunted the criminal down; he had sworn to himself never to rest until justice had been done, and when he heard that the earl was there his face grew pale with anguish.
“He must have heard it,” he said. “Who can have told him?”
He went hastily down to the library, where Lord Lorriston awaited him. He feared the worst when he saw the earl’s haggard face.
“I am an early visitor, Kenelm,” he said, “but I am in sore trouble. I have come to you for help.”