"Oh, Ivy, Ivy, you have killed your husband!" she exclaims, in a frightened voice.
But Ivy, sitting on the floor like a child, running a diamond necklace lovingly through her fingers, like a stream of light, only glances up carelessly at the dead body on the floor, whose life-blood has crept slowly along the carpet, until it has crimsoned the hem of her dress. She laughs aloud, a chill, blood-curdling laugh.
"He deserved death," she answers, in a strange, unnatural voice. "He stole my pretty jewels from me—my diamonds and my pearls, ha, ha! I am the Queen of England, did you not know that? I beheaded my false subject because he stole the crown jewels. There is a ball to-night. I am engaged to dance with the President of the United States. He is coming for that purpose. Ha, ha! will it not be a fine sight?" and springing to her feet she began to dance wildly around the room, her precious jewels clasped in her arms like a babe to her mother's breast, while she sang in terrible, maniacal glee:
"The king is dead, long live the king!"
Again there crept to the door two watchers who peered in all unheeded by those within the room, who watched with straining, horrified gaze the wild gyrations of the maddened Ivy, whose small figure continued to spin aimlessly around the floor to the accompaniment of gay, lilting tunes sung in a high-pitched, tuneless voice, that was terrible to hear.
"The poor lady is raving crazy!" at last exclaimed Mrs. Robson, finding voice for the first time since she had ushered Mr. Noble into the room. The sudden and unexpected appearance of two strange women on the scene, and the murder of her master had struck her dumb with terror, but all the while she had continued to uphold the exhausted frame of Lady Vera in her strong, protecting arms.
"Yes, she is mad," Lady Vera answers, in a low, sad, pitying tone.
"Who says that I am mad?" demands Ivy, sinking down upon the floor, wearied by her wild performance. "I deny it! I am the Shah of Persia's bride, and these jewels are my dowry from my royal bridegroom!"
Mrs. Cleveland, turning her eyes for the first time from the face of her stricken daughter, rests them upon Countess Vera's wasted, death-white features.
"See what your cursed arts have done," she cried out, harshly. "It is all your work! I am glad that you are dying, Vera Campbell! I have hated you from the hour of your birth! You were born to be my stumbling-block, and to work out my destruction!"