XXI. Lord Beltham's Murderer
It was on the point of midnight, and absolute stillness reigned throughout the house.
But Lady Beltham had not gone to bed. Although she had remained in the great hall where she did her work, she had been unable to settle down to any occupation. She had read a little, and begun a letter, got up and sat down; and finally, beginning to feel chilly, she had drawn an easy chair up to the hearth, where a log was just burning out, and stretching out her slippers to the warmth had fallen into a waking dream.
A sound caught her ear and she sat upright. At first she thought it was some trick of the imagination, but in another minute the noise grew louder; there was the hurrying of feet and voices, muffled at first but rapidly becoming louder, and at last a regular uproar, doors banging, glass breaking, and shouts from all parts of the house. Lady Beltham jumped up, nervous and trembling; she was just going to the window when she heard a shot and stopped dead where she stood. Then she rushed out into the vestibule.
"Help!" she screamed. "What on earth is the matter?" and remembering the girls for whom she had assumed responsibility, she called out anxiously for them. "Lisbeth! Thérèse! Susannah! Come to me!"
Doors upstairs were flung open, and with their hair streaming over their night-dresses Thérèse and Susannah rushed downstairs and crouched down by her side, stifling moans of terror.
"Lisbeth? Where is Lisbeth?" Lady Beltham asked sharply.
At the same moment she appeared, her face distorted with fright.