Then she turned to her husband and lowered her voice to an almost imploring tone as she inquired:
“Lyon Berners, do you believe me guilty?”
He looked up, and their eyes met. If he had really believed her guilty he did not now. He answered briefly and firmly:
“No, Sybil! Heaven knows that I do not. But oh! my dear wife! explain, if you can, how that dagger came into your possession, how that blood came upon your hands; and, above all, why this most unhappy lady should have charged you with having murdered her.”
“At your desire, and for the satisfaction of the few dear old friends whom I see among this unbelieving crowd, the friends who would deeply grieve if I should either do or suffer wrong, I will speak. But if it were not for you and for them, I would die before I would deign to defend myself from a charge that is at once so atrocious and so preposterous—so monstrous,” said Sybil, turning a gaze full of haughty defiance upon those who stood there before her face, and dared to believe her guilty.
A stern voice spoke up from that crowd.
“Mr. Lyon Berners, attend to this. A lady lies murdered in your house. By whom she has been so murdered we do not know. But I tell you that every moment in which you delay in sending for the officers of justice to investigate this affair, compromises you and me and all who stand by and silently submit to this delay, as accessories, after the fact.”
Lyon Berners turned towards the speaker, a grave and stern old man of nearly eighty years, a retired judge, who had come to the mask ball escorting his grand-daughters.
“An instant, Judge Basham. Pardon us, if in this dismay some things are forgotten. The coroner shall be summoned immediately. Captain Pendleton, will you oblige me by despatching a messenger to Coroner Taylor at Blackville?” he then inquired, turning to the only friend upon whose discretion he felt he could rely.
Captain Pendleton nodded acquiescence and intelligence, and left the room, as if for the purpose specified.