"Why, Fanchette, is it morning?" she asked, looking around at the drawn curtains and the flaring gas-light.
"Oh, yes, madam, and here's a note which has just come for you, so I thought I had better bring it in, and not wait for your bell to ring, as it is getting late."
Jaquelina took the delicately scented note and opened it almost mechanically. It was an incoherent scrawl from Violet Earle.
"Oh, Lina, Lina!" it ran. "I told you you had ruined all our lives by coming back. That terrible Gerald Huntington has murdered our poor Walter this morning. He has spoken but once, and then only to ask for you. Come at once."
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
The Earles were not staying at a hotel. They were at the residence of a distant relative in a fashionable quarter of the city. Violet had inclosed her address, and the prima donna drove there immediately, full of grief and horror over Walter's dreadful fate.
Violet met her in the elegant drawing-room. The beautiful blonde looking pale, wan and distracted in the dim morning light. Her blue morning robe was all in disorder, her golden hair was disarranged, there were dark circles beneath her eyes, and the soft, blue orbs were drowned in tears.
"Oh, Lina, Lina! I told you so!" she cried, breaking into wild, hysterical weeping. "You have made us all wretched! You have caused poor Walter's death! Oh my brother, my brother!"
Jaquelina stood irresolute in the center of the room, her lips quivering at Violet's passionate charge.