The Ladye Annabel felt the death-like feeling of ice creeping around her heart; and as she looked, she thought she beheld the monk Albertine grow pale with horror, while his compressed lip seemed to tell a story of fearful yet hushed emotion.
The goblet held forth in the hand of the Sworder, was the goblet of gold with which the poisoner of the Red Chamber had administered death to the lips of Julian, Lord of Albarone.
“Man!” exclaimed Albertine, with a blazing eye and livid lip, “how came this goblet—this death-bowl—in thy possession?”
“‘Slife! Dost not know the story? One of the witnesses who gave testimony against that—that—I mean he who sleeps in yonder chamber—received this goblet as a mark of the accuser’s gratitude. I was that witness. Blood o’ th’ Turk, there goes the clock—one, two, three. Sir monk, to thy duty.”
“Father of mercy, he is false at last!”
And as the words broke from the Ladye Annabel’s lips, she beheld the monk take the goblet in his hands; she beheld him empty a paper filled with white powder into its depths.
She could look no more; a cold, icy feeling seemed to freeze the very blood around her heart; her limbs refused their support; she sank slowly down upon the damp floor, and yet the words spoken in the adjoining room came to her ear like the echo of far-off shouts.
“Four, five, six. Monk, wilt delay all night? To thy victim!”
The monk strode across the cell, holding the goblet under his robe; he approached a spot where the tapestried hangings, slightly swept aside, disclosed the entrance into another room.
“Adrian,” whispered the monk, “dost sleep?”