Though the summer's sun shone and the flowers bloomed, the darkest gloom hung over Linleigh Court. Who could have believed that so lately it had been gay with preparations for a wedding? Lady Doris lay white, still, and beautiful in her silent room. Earle had shut himself up in the solitude of his chamber, and refused to come out into the light of day. Lady Estelle was really ill, and the duchess never left her. The one source of all help and comfort, the universal consoler, was Mattie; in after times they wondered what they should have done without her.
The duke and Lord Linleigh were incessantly engaged.
For many long years nothing had made so great a sensation as this murder—all England rang with it. So young, so beautiful, so highly accomplished, heiress to great wealth, and on the point of marriage with the man she loved best in all the world. It was surely the most sad and pathetic affair within the memory of man. There was a suspicion of romance in it, too—murdered on the eve of her marriage.
Some of the best detective skill in England was employed to trace out the murderer; but it was all in vain. The duke offered an unprecedented reward, the earl another, and government another; but it was all in vain; there did not seem to be the slightest clew—no handkerchief with the murderer's name, no weapon bearing his initials, no trace of any kind could be discovered of one of the most horrible crimes in the whole annals of the country.
There had been an inquest. The maid Eugenie, Mattie Brace, Earle, and Lord Linleigh, all gave their evidence; but when it was sifted and arranged, there was absolutely nothing in it; so that the verdict given was, "Found murdered, by some person or persons unknown."
Nothing remained then but to bury her. The brief life was ended; there was no more joy, no more sorrow for her—it was all over; neither her youth, her beauty, nor her wealth could save her. Her sin had found her out, and the price of her sin was death. There could have been no keener, swifter punishment than hers, and sin always brings it.
It seems so easy; the temptation, like that of Doris, is so sudden, so swift, so sweet; the retribution seems so far off. But, sure as night follows day, surely as the golden wheat ripens under the summer sun, it comes at last.
Until the hour she was taken from the sight of men she never lost any of her marvelous loveliness; until the last she looked like a marble sculpture, the highest perfection of beauty. They wondered—those who loved her best, as they knelt by her side and kissed her for the last time—why such wondrous loveliness had been given to her; it had brought her no good—it had given her swift, terrible death. Rank, wealth, position, all have their perils, but it seemed to those who watched her that surely the greatest peril of all is the peril of beauty. She had been so vain of her fair face; it seemed to her that fair, fragile beauty was the chief thing in life. It had led her to vanity, and from vanity to sin of the deepest, deadliest dye. She had paid the price now—her life was the forfeit. The sheen of the golden hair, the light of the proud eyes, the beauty of the radiant face, the grace of the perfect figure, were all hidden away; that for which she had sinned and suffered—for which she had neglected her heart, mind, and soul—for which she had neglected Heaven—was already a thing of the past. Let poets and artists rave of beauty—let the dead girl answer, "What had beauty done for her?"