Horror upon horrors! There lay the dead body of the banker, full-dressed as on the evening before, but with his head crushed in and surrounded by a pool of coagulated blood! The face was marble white; the eyes were open and stony, the jaws had dropped and stiffened into death. Across the body lay the swooning form of his daughter, with her bridal vail and robes all dabbled in her father's blood.
"Heaven of heavens! Who has done this?" cried the marquis, a cold sweat of horror bursting from his pallid brow as he stared upon this ghastly sight!
A dozen voices answered him at once, to the effect that no one yet knew.
"Run! run! and fetch a doctor instantly! Some of you! any of you who can go the quickest!" he cried, as he stooped and lifted the insensible form of his bride and laid her on the bed—the bed that had not been occupied during the night. Evidently from these appearances, the banker had been murdered before his usual hour of retiring.
"Who has gone for a doctor?" inquired Lord Arondelle, in an agony of anxiety, as he bent over the unconscious form of his beloved one.
"I have despatched Gilbert, yer lairdship. He will mak' unco guid haste," answered the steward, who stood overcome with grief as he gazed upon the ghastly corpse of his unfortunate master.
"My lord," said Lady Belgrade, who stood by too deeply awed for tears, and up to this moment for action either—"my lord, you had better go out of the room for the present, and take all these men with you, and leave Miss Levison to the care of myself and the women. This is all unspeakably horrible! But our first care should be for her. We must loosen her dress, and take other measures for her recovery."
"Yes, yes! Great Heaven! yes! Do all you can for her! This is maddening!" groaned the marquis, smiting his forehead as he left the bedside, yielding his place to the dowager.
"Do try to command yourself, Lord Arondelle. This is, indeed, a most awful shock. It would have been awful at any time, but on your wedding day it comes with double violence. But do summon all your strength of mind, for her sake. Think of her. She came to this room in her bridal dress to call her father, that he might get ready to take her to the altar, to give her to you, and she found him here murdered—weltering in his blood. It was enough to have killed her, or unseated her reason forever," said the lady, as she busied herself with unfastening the rich, white, satin bodice of the wedding robe.
"Oh, Salome! Salome! that I could bear this sorrow for you! Oh, my darling, that all my love should be powerless to save you from a sorrow like this!" cried the young man, dropping his head upon his clenched hands.