Suddenly one voice arose above the other, with the roar of an infuriated wild beast. It was her uncle’s voice. It cried:
“DIE, then! and end it all!”
There was a heavy fall and groan.
With a shriek of horror Gloria arose and fled to the negro woman and buried her face in her bosom.
The next instant the door was suddenly unlocked and thrown open, and Marcellus de Crespigney—his face haggard, his eyes starting, his hair bristling—ran out, tore open the hall door and rushed from the house out into the winter night.
“I must go see what’s happened,” hastily muttered the black woman, in a voice full of awe, as she put the child off her knee and went toward the sitting-room.
Gloria, tottering, moaning, sobbing piteously, followed.
The long room was silent and almost dark, for the candles had not been called for, and there was no light except from the smouldering logs of the fire in the open chimney.
Fallen on a rug before this fire, lay a white form.
Sophia stooped to look at it, and instantly started up in horror, crying out: