"How?" demanded her mistress, hoarsely.
"By the poison, madame. It was all black on her lips, and spilt on the bed-clothes, and the vial broken on the floor; but she got enough to kill her stone dead."
"That is well. If she chose to die by suicide, we are not accountable," she said, heartlessly, though her frame shook as with an ague chill.
No amount of sophistry could make her believe herself guiltless of this terrible deed.
"Will you come and look at the corp', madame? I want you to be satisfied I'm telling the truth," continued the Irish woman, eagerly; and after a moment of hesitation, Mrs. Ellsworth decided to go.
It was best to make sure of her cruel work.
In the twilight gloom they stole away, and threaded the dark, noisome corridors of the ruined wing down to the underground passages, till they reached the dark cell where poor Dainty's life had ebbed away in untended illness and fever, till, crazed and delirious, she had ended all with the tempting draught that promised oblivion of her sorrows in welcome death.
It was a sight to make the angels weep with pity when Sheila flashed her light in the gloomy place, and revealed to Mrs. Ellsworth's shrinking eyes the pale, still form of the girl she had hated and wronged, lying on the squalid couch, with her golden tresses veiling her wasted form and framing the fair, dead face like sunshine; the blue eyes closed on the world that had been so cruel to her; the pale lips stained with the dark liquid she had drained in the madness of her desperation.
On the chair lay the broken remains of the bread she had been too ill to swallow; but the bottles of water were quite empty, and perhaps they could guess how she had drained them and wept for more in the terrible feverish thirst of her last hours; but they spoke no word to each other of this, only gazed and gazed with a sort of conscience-stricken awe on the dead girl, until at last Mrs. Ellsworth stooped and placed her hand on the white breast.
"Yes, she is gone, poor girl! Her heart is cold and still, her form seems quite rigid; she must have been dead quite a long while," she muttered, in a tone of relief.