'Come,' Ericson said gently and sympathetically, 'let us go in and learn what has happened. Let us have the full story of the whole tragedy. Nothing is now left but to punish the guilty.'
'Who are they?' Helena asked in passion.
'We shall find them,' he answered. 'Come with me, Helena. You are a brave girl, and you are not going to give way now. I may have to ask you to lend a helping hand yet.'
The Dictator said these words with a purpose. He knew that the best way to get a courageous woman to brace herself together for new effort and new endurance was to make her believe that her personal help would still be wanted.
'Oh, I—I am ready for anything,' she said fervently. 'Only tell me what I am to do, and you will see that I can do it.'
'I trust you,' he answered quietly. Meanwhile his keen eyes were wandering over the side of the house, where a light smoke told him of fire. Time enough yet, he thought.
Ericson and Helena hurried into the house and up to the corridor, which seemed to be the stage of the tragedy. Sir Rupert was there, and Mrs. Sarrasin, and Miss Paulo, and the Duchess and her three maids, who, with the instinct of discipline, had rallied round her when, like the three hares in the old German folk-song, they found that they were not killed.
'Who are killed?' the Dictator asked anxiously but withal composedly. He had seen men killed before.
'Poor Soame Rivers is killed,' Sir Rupert said sadly. 'The man who broke into Sarrasin's room—your room, Ericson—he is killed.'
'And Sarrasin himself?' Ericson asked, glancing away from Mrs. Sarrasin.