All were there! guests and servants, men and women, drawn there by the dreadful shrieks. All had heard the horrible accusation.
And all stood panic-stricken, as they shrank away from one who stood in their midst.
It was she, Sybil, the accused, whose very aspect accused her more loudly than the dying woman had done; for she stood there, still in her fiery masquerade dress, her face pallid, her eyes blazing, her wild black hair loose and streaming, her crimsoned hand raised and grasping a bloodstained dagger.
“Oh, wretched woman! most wretched woman! What is this that you have done?” groaned Lyon Berners, in unutterable agony—agony not for the dead beauty before him, but for the living wife, whom he felt that he had driven to this deed of desperation. “Oh, Sybil! Sybil! what have you done?” he cried, grinding his hands together.
“I? I have done nothing!” faltered his wife, with pale and tremulous lips.
“Oh, Sybil! Sybil! would to Heaven you had died before this night! Or that I could now give my life for this life that you have madly taken!” moaned Lyon.
“I have taken no life! What do you mean? This is horrible!” exclaimed Sybil, dropping the dagger, and looking around upon her husband and friends, who all shrank from her. “I have taken no life! I am no assassin! Who dares to accuse me?” she demanded, standing up pale and haughty among them.
And then she saw that every lowered eye, every compressed lip, every shuddering and shrinking form, silently accused her.
Mr. Berners had turned again to the dead woman. His hand was eagerly searching for some pulsation at the heart. Soon he ceased his efforts, and arose.
“Vain! vain!” he said, “all is still and lifeless, and growing cold and stiff in death. Oh! my wretched wife!”