In an instant, all was in confusion. Jasper Vermont, with a mocking laugh, had sprung over the stone balustrade, and was running across the turf in the direction of the stream which, lower down, spanned the race-course, and, even at this time of the year, was almost a foaming torrent. Attracted by the sound of the shot, the servants had approached, and now set off in hot pursuit.
But Jasper Vermont was fleet of foot, and when he had gained the top of the rising ground he turned for one second to laugh again. But the laugh died on his lips, as a voice--audible even above all the hubbub and confusion--the shrill voice of Ada Lester, screamed:
"You villain. You have murdered your own child!"
Those who were in pursuit saw him suddenly stagger, as he realised that the girl, whose identity he had that day learnt for the first time, had received the bullet he had intended for Adrien Leroy.
With a short, sharp cry, like that of a wounded animal, he missed his footing, fell backwards into the stream, which at this point was both wide and deep, and was carried away; drowning before the very eyes of the man who had so loved and trusted him, and whom he had so bitterly wronged.
CHAPTER XXVI
The suddenness of the tragedy which had taken place postponed all further discussion.
The sunlight, streaming through the latticed windows of one of the rooms in the Castle, shed its rays on the still form of the young girl, who had given her life for the man she loved so well.
Beside the bed knelt Adrien Leroy, his face buried in one hand, the other resting upon the still one that lay, white as marble, on the silken coverlet. He had come, overwhelmed with pain, from the scene on the terrace, to pour forth a passionate grief and remorse over this young life that had been so generously given up to save his.
It mattered nothing to him that the dead girl was the daughter of the man whom he had befriended, and who had used his generosity only as a means by which to betray him; it mattered nothing that his grief might even now be misconstrued by the tongues of the uncharitable. He knelt in the deepest humility by the dead girl's side, deeming his life all unworthy to have been saved at such a cost; and while he implored the pardon of the great Creator for the follies of his past life he called on the Almighty to hear the vows which he now made--that for the future his steps would be in wiser paths.