By a promise of large rewards, he speedily induced a party of men to set out in separate directions to scour the adjacent country for the wanderer.
But scarcely had they set out on their mission when someone brought to Howard the news of the corpse that old ocean had cast upon the sands.
Dreading, yet fully expecting to behold the dead body of Lora Carroll, Howard Templeton turned back and accompanied the man to the scene.
They found a group of excited men and women gathered, on the shore, drawn thither by that nameless fascination which the dreadful and mysterious always possesses for every class of minds whether high or low.
Conspicuous in the group was Ninon, the pretty young maid-servant, and, as Howard came upon the scene, she was volubly explaining to the bystanders that the shawl which was tightly pinned about the shoulders of the dead woman belonged to the missing girl for whom the men had gone out to search.
Was she quite sure of it, they asked her. Yes, she was quite sure.
She had seen it night after night lying across the bed in the young lady's sleeping-apartment.
When she was ill and restless, as often happened, she would put it around her shoulders and walk up and down the room for hours, weeping and wringing her hands like one in sore distress.
"Yes," Ninon said, she could swear to the shawl. She would take it home with her and show it to her mistress, and they would see that she was right.
No one interfered to prevent her.