Grim darkness seemed to be closing round her, thick and heavy. The light faded from her eyes, another sharp pain, and the cold hand seemed to hold the panting heart more tightly in its grasp. The fair head drooped; once, twice the white lips opened as though she would fain cry for help, and then—ah! then the dark curtain was torn from before the portals of eternity, and she who had loved him so faithfully stood by Ronald’s side again. Lady Alden was dead.
It was an hour before her father and Mr. Eyrle returned. Then the earl knew all that had passed, and was firm in maintaining his daughter’s innocence.
“There is a mystery in this mystery,” he said, “and you will find it so. Let us return to my unhappy child and try to solve it.”
He opened the door of the pretty morning-room where he had left her, and saw her lying back in the huge lounging chair. He placed his fingers on her lips.
“Hush!” he said to Mr. Eyrle; “she has cried herself to sleep. Do not awaken her; that does not look much like guilt, does it?”
There was a strange, brooding stillness in the room, no sound broke it, even the birds had ceased singing. The earl went up to the chair. Was this sleep; this strange, deep, unbroken calm, this hushed, solemn repose?
He bent over her, and a cry that Kenelm Eyrle never forgot came from his lips—a cry of such horror, such dread, that it rang through the silence with a terrible sound. He laid his hand on the cold face, on the silent heart.
“Oh, my God!” he said, in a terrible voice. “She is dead!”
Ah! they might do as they would—run here and there in hot haste for doctors, apply remedies—the grim angel laughed. She was stone dead.
Kenelm Eyrle saw the little packet, and took it from her hands.