Adrian took his mother by the hand, and led her to the couch. He spoke not a word, but waved his hand toward the couch. Her form was concealed for a moment amid the hangings of the bed, and then a shriek of wild emphasis startled the ears of the bystanders.
“He is dead,” exclaimed the Lady of Albarone, in a voice of unnatural calmness, as she again appeared from amid the hangings of the bed, with a face ghastly and livid as the face of death. “Vassals of Albarone, your lord is dead!”
There was a cry of horror echoing through the chamber, and the Lady of Albarone sank, leaning for support upon the arm of her son, while Annabel, in the intervals of her own sobs and sighs, whispered hurried words of consolation in her ear.
Aldarin stood regarding the group with a glance of deep and searching meaning. He gazed upon the vacant features of the Duke, distended by surprise, the countenance of Adrian, marked by a settled frown of indignation, the visage of the Countess, livid as death; and then the fair face of his daughter Annabel, her eyes swimming in tears, the parted lips and the cheek pale and flushed by turns, met the glance of Aldarin, and a strange expression trembled on his compressed lip, and darkened over his high forehead.
“Lady of Albarone,” exclaimed the Scholar, advancing,—“Lady of Albarone, my brother died not through the course of nature, he died not by the hand of disease—he was murdered!”
“Murdered!” repeated the Countess with a hollow echo.
And the Duke took up the word, echoing, with a trembling voice, that word of fear, “murdered,” while the Servitors of Albarone sent the cry shrieking around the nooks and corners of the Red Chamber.
Adrian of Albarone looked around the scene and smiled as if in scorn, but said not a word.
Aldarin made one stride to the couch of death.
“Behold the corse,” he shrieked; “behold the blackened face, the sunken eyelids and the livid lips; behold the ghastly remains of the Lord of Albarone!”