“It is too late now,” he replied, in as low a tone. “He may as well speak out before them now. Go on, Browne.”
The keeper touched his front lock.
“I beg your pardon, squire, but I’m skeard-like. It—it come so sudden. I was passing through the wood to the big tent, when I see it lying on the ground just by the felled oak there——”
“Saw what?” said the earl.
“The woman, my lord,” replied Browne, with a shudder. “I—I thought, seein’ as she was a stranger, that—beggin’ your pardon, my lord—she might have had too much drink in the tent—some of ’em has, you see—and was just lyin’ asleep; but when I stooped down to wake her, I saw that she was—dead.”
A thrill of horror ran through the group of silent listeners. Death is a grim visitor at all seasons; but at a marriage feast!
“Dead!” echoed the earl.
“Yes, my lord; quite dead. There weren’t no difficulty in telling how, for there was the wound in her side plain enough. She’d been shot, squire; shot.”
Bessie’s hand closed more tightly on Olivia’s.
“I called out for help, squire, and then——”