Mechanically his eyes wandered over the festal-board with its array of plate and jewels. The splendid parade of wealth made his present position only the more ghastly. Like a spectre from the tomb Nemesis arose to mock him amid the very riches which his guilt had purchased.
A silence had fallen both upon actors and audience. They had begun to catch a glimpse of the true meaning of this strange tableau. As motionless as statues they sat: they scarcely breathed: it would have required an earthquake or the conflagration of the hall itself to have moved them.
In silent despair the earl looked around upon the array of still faces set with earnest attention upon him, and then he turned again to the skull. All lifeless as it was, it was victor over him to-day. It seemed to be grinning at him in conscious mockery. Powerless itself to speak it had found a mouthpiece, an avenger, in the person of Lorelie.
Why had he allowed this woman to leave the secret vault, where her life had been in his hands? He might have known that she would never rest till she had avenged herself upon him.
He looked into the depth of her dark blue eyes—eyes that were steeled to pity. "Like for like," they seemed to say: she would show him the same mercy that he would have shown her, though in truth, Lorelie thought not of herself, but of the dead Eric Marville, so cruelly wronged both by her father and herself: Eric Marville, who had generously refrained from claiming the peerage justly his in order that the present earl might enjoy it. And he had received his death-stroke from the hand of the very man whom he had benefited! Was this a case for pity!
"By yon tapestry, silent witness of the deed, I adjure you, speak! Whose skull is this?"
A portion of the arras within view of the earl was clutched from behind by an unseen hand, and was suddenly rent in twain from top to bottom with a sharp ripping sound: then came the fall of some dull body, (though nothing was seen by the audience), followed by a faint soughing like an expiring breath.
The earl shook convulsively. The very sounds that had accompanied the fall of his victim in Ormfell!
With slow motion Lorelie raised her hand to her head. The earl followed her action with his eyes, wondering what new terror was in store for him. Drawing the broken stiletto pin from her hair she placed the fragment of the blade within the orifice of the skull, where it remained, the jewelled hilt projecting above, and glittering with weird effect.
"By the very stiletto that let out the life of your victim, I adjure you, speak! Whose skull is this?"