She threw up her hands—she uttered a great cry. Those that heard it say it rings even now in their ears. She threw herself upon him. The crimson blood dyed her veil, as it hung loose and torn, and tinged the innocent pearls around her neck with its terrible hue. She fainted the second time, and would have fallen, but Aymer caught her; and they bore her upstairs, unconscious even of her misery.
The Place was silent. The guns were not fired, the bells were stilled. Men moved with careful footsteps, women hushed their voices, and in the stillness they heard the church clock slowly striking the hour of noon. At that moment she should have been returning, radiant and blissful in triumph, to meet the welcome from her father’s lips.
There was one that could not understand it—one dumb beast that could not be driven away. It was Dando, the mastiff dog. Strangely enough, he avoided the chamber of the dead, and crouched at the door of Violet’s room.
When Merton saw it he said, “Let the dog go in; maybe, he will relieve her a little.”
But Violet, lying on a couch, conscious now and tearless, despairing in the darkened room, motioned him away. “Take him away,” she said. “If he had been faithful, he would have watched and guarded.”
It was a natural thought, but it was not just. Poor Dando, like the rest, had gone to the church with the crowd; and just at the moment when he was most wanted, then he was absent from his duty.
The great sun still bathed the village in a flood of light, the fleecy clouds sailed slowly in the azure, the yellow mist hung over the distant hills, and the leaves now and again rustled to the ground. But the chamber that should have resounded with laughter and joy was darkened. One more human leaf had fallen from the earthly tree of life. Once more those that were left behind were worse off than those that were taken. In the words of the dear old ballad—
My summer’s day, in lusty May,
Is darked afore the noon.