“Who can have sent me a petit bleu?” exclaimed Lord Cheriton, who was accustomed to receive a good many of those little blue envelopes when he was in Paris, but expected no such communications at St Malo.
Before leaving for his holiday he had impressed upon land steward and house steward that he was not to be bothered about anything.
“If there is anything wanted you will communicate with Messrs. Dalbrook,” he said. “They have full powers.”
And yet here was some worrying message—some question about a lease or an agreement, or somebody’s rick had been burnt, or somebody’s chimney had fallen through the roof. He opened the little envelope with a vexed air, resentful of an unexpected annoyance. He read the message, and then sat blankly staring; read again, and rose from his seat suddenly with a cry of horror.
Never in his life had he experienced such a shock; never had those iron nerves, that heart, burned hard in the furnace of this world’s strife, been so tried. He stood aghast, and could only give the little paper—with its type-printed syllables—to his scared wife, while he stood gazing at summer sky and summer sea in a blank helplessness, realizing dimly that something had happened which must change the whole course of the future, and overthrow every plan he had ever made.
“The third Baron Cheriton.” Strange, but in that awful moment the words he had repeated idly on the sands half an hour ago echoed again in his ear.
Alas, he felt as if that title for which he had toiled was already extinct. He saw, as in a vision, the velvet cap and golden coronet upon the coffin lid, as the first and last Lord Cheriton was carried to his grave. That prophetic vision must needs be realized within a few years. There would be no one to succeed him.
Murdered! Why? By whom? What devil had been conjured out of hell to cut short that honest, stainless life? What had Godfrey Carmichael done that a murderer’s hand should be raised against him?
Lady Cheriton’s softer nature found relief in tears before the day was done; tears and agonized pacings up and down those rooms where life had been so placid in the sunlight—agonized supplications that God would take pity upon her widowed girl.