"Sir Augustus, my dear Lady Kirwan," Sir Thomas began to gasp, with tears running down his cheeks—"Sir Augustus is very ill; but——"
He got no further, Lady Kirwan began to move quickly, as if some dread instinct had told her the truth, towards the library door.
"No, no, dear Lady Kirwan," Sir Thomas said—"don't go!"
She brushed him aside as if he had been a straw in her path, and the terrified group of people saw her burst upon the great white-painted door which led to the chamber of death.
There was a silence, an agonized silence of several seconds, and then what all expected and waited for came.
A terrible cry of anguish pealed out into the house, a cry so wild and despairing that the very walls seemed to shudder in fearful sympathy.
A cry, repeated thrice, and then a choking gurgle, which in its turn gave way to a deep contralto voice of menace.
Inside the library Lady Kirwan reeled by the long table upon which the still form of the man she loved lay hushed for ever in death. One arm was thrown around the rigid, waxen face, the left was outstretched with accusing finger, and pointing at Joseph the evangelist.
"It is you!" the terrible voice pealed out. "It is you, false prophet, liar, murderer, who have brought a good man to his end! It was you who killed my dear, dear nephew Lluellyn upon the hills of our race! It is you—who have come into a happy household with lying wiles and sneers and signs and tokens of your master Satan, whom you serve—who have murdered my beloved! May the curse of God rest upon you! May you wither and die and go to your own place and your own master—you, who have killed my dear one!"
Then there was a momentary silence, once more the high despairing wail of a mind distraught, a low, shuddering sigh, and a heavy thud, as Lady Kirwan fell upon the floor in a deep and merciful swoon.