“Oh, God, I did not think I would ever be a murderess! I betrayed him to the vigilantes, I know, but their hands drew the fatal rope, not mine. I believed him dead so long that even his memory had grown dim in my mind till I saw and knew him again. But I would not have killed him if I could have bought him off. It was his own fault—brutal and relentless ever, he brought his fate on himself. I—I—did not let Finette murder that child, much as I hated her. It seemed too horrible. But sin has fallen on me, anyway. Ah! now I know why Lord Stuart’s face was so strangely familiar. He was in the crowd around the gallows-tree. I wonder if he saw my face there? But, thank Heaven! no, for I remember that I fled from the scene as if pursued by fiends, and soon made good my escape to my father.”
From those wild mutterings she had to drag herself up to dress and meet her husband, who was coming straight from the presence of innocent Little Sweetheart, to meet the wife who had rushed wildly from that terrible scene by the river, with blood-stained hands, to his embrace.
She spared no pains to make herself beautiful—she placed a strong guard upon her feelings. Never had she been more charming, but she was glad when the strain of the evening was over and she could put her head down on her pillow in the friendly darkness and let the lying smile fade from her lips.
The slow hours of the night wore on, bringing the morrow—the morrow, and what?
Would the river give up its dead? Perhaps—but surely there could be no clew connecting her with the secret of the murder. Why should she keep on thinking of that? It was impossible.
Ah, if only she could sleep! If only to-morrow did not haunt her so! At last, just before the faint dawn-light crept into the eastern sky, the tired lids dropped and she slept heavily—so heavily that hours went by unheeded and the sun was high when she awoke again. To-morrow was here, and with it sensational tidings. A dead man had been found in the river a mile below Verelands—a murdered man, and he had been identified as Robert Lacy, the valet of Lord Stuart.
Norman himself told her this when she came down to a late breakfast, and she asked eagerly, with an appearance of interest:
“Murdered? Who could have done it?”
“That is the strangest part of it. There is not the slightest clew to the murderer. The man was a stranger here. He had made no friends nor enemies in the place so far as known. An inquest will be held to-day, and if any one knows anything it will probably come out there,” he said.
“What does Lord Stuart think? What does he say?” she inquired, eagerly.