“Mr. Berners, you are master of the house. I earnestly exhort you to clear the room of all here, except Miss Winterose and ourselves,” said Captain Pendleton in an almost commanding tone.
“Friends and neighbors,” cried Lyon Berners, lifting up his voice, so that it could be heard all over the room, “I implore you to withdraw to your own apartments. Your presence here only serves to distress yourselves and embarrass us. And we have a duty to do to the dead.”
The crowd began to disperse and move toward the doors when suddenly Sybil Berners lifted her hand on high and called, in a commanding tone:
“Stop!”
And all stopped and turned their eyes on her.
She was still very pale, but now also very calm; the most self-collected one in that room of death.
“I have somewhat to say to you,” she continued. “You all heard the dying words of that poor dead woman, in which she accused me of having murdered her; and your own averted eyes accuse me quite as strongly, and my own aspect, perhaps, more strongly than either.”
She paused and glanced at her crimsoned hand, and then looked around and saw that her nearest neighbors and oldest friends, who had known her longest and loved her best, now turned away their heads, or dropped their eyes. She resumed:
“The dead woman was mistaken; you are misled; and my very appearance is deceptive. I will not deny that the woman was my enemy. Driven to desperation, and in boiling blood, I might have been capable of doing her a deadly mischief, but bravely and openly, as the sons and daughters of my fiery race have done such things before this. But to go to her chamber in the dead of night, and in darkness and secrecy—! No! I could not have done that, if she had been ten times the enemy she was. Is there one here who believes that the daughter of Bertram Berners could be guilty of that or any other base deed?” she demanded, as her proud glance swept around upon the faces of her assembled friends and neighbors.
But their averted eyes too sorrowfully answered her question.