He comes a little nearer—he tries to see her face.
"You hear me?" he repeats.
"I hear you."
The words drop like ice from her lips. One hand is clutching the arm of her chair—her wide-open black eyes never turn from the night-scene.
"My lady is dead—cruelly murdered. O Miss Inez! do you hear?—murdered! What is to be done?"
She does not answer. Her lips move, but no word comes. An awful fear begins to fill the faithful servant's heart.
"Miss Inez!" he cries out, "you must come—they are waiting for you below. There is no one here but you—Sir Victor is away. Sir Victor—"
His voice breaks; he takes out his handkerchief and sobs like a child.
"My dear young master! My dear young master! He loved the very ground she walked on. Oh, who is to tell him this?"
She rises slowly now, like one who is cramped, and stiff, and cold. She looks at the old man. In her eyes there is a blind, dazed sort of horror—on her face there is a ghastliness no words can describe.