"To me—to me? Nothing; yet I felt toward her almost as if she were my sister. When last I left her she was full of life, and youth, and vigor; and now, now to hear so suddenly that she is dead—and murdered! She—sweet, fair, and gentle as an angel, to meet such a fate! Oh, Campbell! is it not enough to drive one mad to think of it?"
"It is a sad thing, I must confess," said Captain Campbell, who, being the most unsuspicious of human beings, received this explanation as perfectly satisfactory; "and no one but a demon in human form could have perpetrated the deed!"
"Who is the murderer?" said Drummond, in a deep, hollow voice.
"That cannot be discovered. The island, and every place else, I believe, has been searched; but no clew to his hiding-place can be found. Regards have been offered, the police put on the track, but all in vain."
"When was the diabolical crime committed?"
"The very night you left N——. You remember the terrific storm of that night! Somewhere about midnight, it is supposed, poor Christie was assassinated. The deed was committed somewhere near the shore; and as the tide was very high, the body, if left on the rocks, must have been swept away. What could have brought Christie from the house at such an hour, and in such a storm, unless she had been forcibly carried out, is a mystery still unsolved."
In spite of all his efforts, another anguished groan broke from the tortured heart of Willard Drummond. The thought of his note appointing that fatal meeting! Oh, too well he knew what had brought her there; and a pang, keener than death, pierced his soul as he thought of that slight, delicate girl plunging through all that howling tempest to meet him!
"Who was on the island at the time?" he asked, after a pause.
"No one but Mrs. Tom and Carl and one or two negroes; and—yes, now I think of it, Sibyl was there too."
"Sibyl?" said Willard, with a start.