Without a word, Dora returned and touched the forehead of the old man with her fresh young lips. As she passed through the door, a glance back showed her a picture which never left her memory in afterlife. Edermont, his noble head with its white hair leaning on his hand, sat by the bureau in gloomy thought. A single candle served rather to show than to dispel the darkness; and in the gulf of pale glimmer hollowed out of the gloom the man looked like some famous portrait by an old master. The burden of years was visible in his silvery hair and sweeping beard of snow; the burden of sorrow marked itself in the hollow eyes, the wrinkled cheek and forehead, the wasted hands. He looked the incarnation of eld as seen in that spectral light, in that tenebrous atmosphere. Dora never forgot that sight.
Once in her room, she lost no time in getting to bed. Her sleepless nights of the past week had worn her out; and now that the pain had left her tooth, she was glad to take advantage of the respite. At first she thought about her guardian and his untold miseries; afterwards of Allen's strange behaviour; lastly, her thoughts wandered to Joad's sly looks and hinted terrors, until sleep rolled like a wave over her weary brain, and she became oblivious of the material world. Nature revenged herself for many vigils, and soothed her into sound slumber.
How long she had been asleep she did not know, but suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, she woke with a start, and sat up in the bed, her nerves strung to their utmost tension, faculties all on the alert. It seemed to her that she had heard a muffled cry for help, a wild appeal for mercy; but now that she was listening with all her will, she could hear nothing. All was dark and quiet: not a sound broke the silence of the still night. After a moment or two, Dora believed that she had mistaken a dream for a reality, and, laughing softly at her own folly, lay down again to sleep. As her head touched the pillow, the deep bell of the hall clock chimed "one." Remembering how often she had heard those dreary tones in the past week, Dora smiled drowsily to herself, and was soon fast asleep again. When she again woke it was dawn.
Someone was knocking furiously at the door of the bedroom. Dora leaped out of her bed, unlocked it, and flung it wide open. Meg Gance, the cook, stood shaking on the threshold, as pale as a ghost.
"Miss Dora! O Lord, miss!" gasped the terrified woman. "The master is--is--is dead!"
"Dead?" replied Dora in a dazed tone.
"Murdered! And his head! O Lord! 'tis bashed in like a pumpkin!"
[CHAPTER VII.]
A NINE DAYS' SCANDAL.
And this was the end of Julian Edermont's high spirits. For twenty years he had dreaded and guarded himself against a violent death; but the moment that the fear had been removed the end came. There was something ironical in the way in which Fate had lulled his suspicions only to smite the surer. One day he had been rejoicing in the thought that the reign of terror was over; the next he lay dead under his own roof-tree, and none knew who had slain him.