It was light here. A fitful midnight moon, pale and feeble, was breaking through a rift in the clouds, and shedding its sickly glimmer over the black earth and raging sea. To her eyes, accustomed to the dense darkness, every object was plainly visible. She strained her gaze over the waves to catch the coming boat she knew was to bear those she had come to meet; she listened breathlessly to every sound. But for a weary while she listened, and watched, and waited in vain. What was that? A footstep crashing through the under-wood near at hand. She turned with a wordless cry of terror. A tall, dark figure emerged from the trees and strode straight toward her. An awful voice spoke:
"I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever came again to meet that man. False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!"
She uttered a long, low cry. She recognized the voice—it was the voice of her husband; she recognized the form—her husband's—towering over her, with a long, gleaming dagger in his hand.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ON THE STONE TERRACE.
When Sybilla Silver parted from Lady Kingsland outside the chamber door, she went straight to her own room, and began her preparations for that night's work.
The flaming red spots, all foreign to her usual complexion, blazed on either cheek-bone; her black eyes shone like the eyes of a tigress crouched in a jungle.
But she never faltered—she never wavered in her deadly purpose. The aim of her whole life was to be fulfilled this night—the manes of her dead kinsfolk to be appeased.
Her first act was to sit down and write a note. It was very brief, illy spelled, vilely written, on a sheet of coarsest paper, and sealed with a big blotch of red wax and the impress of a grimy thumb. This is what Miss Silver wrote: